History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

Walter, 2nd Lord Rothschild, unlike his great father, who had died early in 1915, was a curious choice to take part in one of the most decisive events in Jewish history. It is true that, unlike his father, he had become more or less a Zionist. But he had a speech defect and many other inhibitions, and all his energies had gone, not on public and community affairs, but on the silent amassing of the greatest man-made collection ever assembled. At his Wren house in Tring, once the gift of Charles II to Nell Gwynn, he had accumulated 2,250,000 moths and butterflies, 300,000 bird-skins, 200,000 bird’s eggs, and–among many other species–144 live giant tortoises, including the largest in the world, 150 years old. He had published over 1,200 scientific papers (and books), discovered 5,000 new species, 250 of which had been named after him, including a giraffe, an elephant, a porcupine, a rockwallaby, a bird of paradise, a grackle, a fly with eyes on stalks and an intestinal worm. Unknown to anyone, even his few intimates, he was also being steadily stripped of his fortune by an unscrupulous peeress and her husband, who blackmailed him for over forty years.15