Isaac Seligman (2 December 1834 – 9 April 1928) was a

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unit ...

merchant banker and philanthropist.

Background

He was born Isaak Seligmann in Baiersdorf, Erlangen-Hochstadt, Bayern, Germany (Bavaria), to David Isaak Seligman and Fanny Steinhardt. He was the youngest of eight brothers, all of whom emigrated to America and became involved in running various branch offices of the

merchant banking A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commod ...

house J. & W. Seligman & Co., co-founded in Manhattan, New York City in 1846 by Isaak's elder brothers, James and

Joseph Seligman Joseph Seligman (November 22, 1819 – April 25, 1880) was an American banker and businessman who founded J. & W. Seligman & Co. He was the patriarch of what became known as the Seligman family in USA and was subsequently related to the wealthy ...

. Isaak later changed his name to Isaac, and in August 1857, at the age of 23, Seligman joined his entrepreneurial brothers in the United States.

Merchant banker

Seligman went on to run 'Seligman Brothers', the London branch of the Seligman merchant-banking empire with his brother Leopold, at 18 Austin Friars, EC2.

Marriage

He married 18-year-old Lina Messel (b. Darmstadt 1851) in London in 1869. Between 1869 and 1886, Lena bore him three daughters and four sons, the eldest son being Charles David Seligman. His youngest daughter, Edith Babette Seligman, married Charles Samuel Myers' in 1904.

Philanthropist

Seligman was also a fundraiser for, benefactor to, and

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fr ...

in, a large number of charitable and

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

organisations including the American Society in London, the Anglo-Jewish Association (lobbying against oppression of

Serbian Jews The history of the Jews in Serbia is some two thousand years old. The Jews first arrived in the region during Roman times. The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Port ...

), the German Association (raising funds for those wounded or made destitute by the Franco-Prussian War), the Mansion House Committee (raising funds for distressed

Jews in Russia The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

), the

Eighty Club The Eighty Club was a political London gentlemen's club named after the year it was founded, 1880 (much like the later 1900 Club and 1920 Club). It was strictly aligned to the Liberal Party, with members having to pledge support to join. Somewha ...

in London (social and political), and the Jew's Deaf and Dumb Home (lip-reading for deaf and mute), founded by Baroness M. de Rothschild, of which Seligman was the treasurer in 1875.

Seligman and Charles A.V. Conybeare

In 1896, Seligman was appointed joint legal owner and trustee of the 'Tregullow Offices' (later ''Zimapan Villa''), a former Cornish mine office belonging to the Williams mining-mogul family of Scorrier, Cornwall, by

Charles Augustus Vansittart Conybeare Charles Augustus Vansittart Conybeare (1 June 1853 – 18 February 1919) was an English barrister and a radical Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons from 1885 to 1895. Ba ...

, barrister-at-law and MP for Camborne, Cornwall (1885–1895). Seligman was released from his trusteeship in 1902 when Conybeare and his wife sold their property, which originally formed part of a marriage settlement, to mining engineer Charles Rule Williams,Charles Rule Williams at www.zimapanners.com

Luxury home in Kensington

In 1899, Seligman bought 17

Kensington Palace Gardens Kensington Palace Gardens is an exclusive street in Kensington, west of central London, near Kensington Gardens and Kensington Palace. Entered through gates at either end and guarded by sentry boxes, it was the location of the London Cage, th ...

, London,''The Crown estate in Kensington Palace Gardens: Individual buildings''
Survey of London: volume 37: Northern Kensington (1973), pp. 162-193. Date accessed: 12 November 2010. a grand mansion built in the north Italian villa style, near Arthur Strauss MP (Charles Conybeare's parliamentary successor), who lived down at the end of the tree-lined boulevard at No. 1

. At that time, Seligman's principal home, now part of London's billionaire's row, had at least four reception rooms and 13 bedrooms.

Death

Seligman died a

wealthy Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an ...

man in 1928 at the age of 93, leaving a fortune in his will valued at more than GBP 18 million in today's money.

References

External links

Details of the funeral and where Isaac was buried, as well as an extended biography about him, can be found at www.zimapanners.com. {{DEFAULTSORT:Seligman, Isaac 1834 births 1928 deaths American bankers American philanthropists People from Erlangen-Höchstadt Bankers from London Bavarian emigrants to the United States