Lydia Louise (Yvonne) de Rothschild (née Cahen d'Anvers) (1899-1977)
Lydia Louise (Yvonne) de Rothschild (née Cahen d'Anvers) was born on 26 August 1899, in Champs-sur-Marne, Île- de-France, France. She was the daughter of Colonel Robert Cahen d'Anvers of Paris and Sonia Warschawsky. Her father was a military man, who served in the First World War. During the First World War, along with her mother and younger sister, Renee, Yvonne spent time in Norfolk, Devon and Cornwall, England. Yvonne and her sister both contributed to the war effort, working on local farms and helping with the harvest. Yvonne loved riding and hunting and was an accomplished and elegant horsewoman. She was also very keen on motoring, owning several prestigious cars including a Rolls-Royce, Bugatti and Hispano-Suiza. She was part of the great social scene of Europe and during a dinner party in February 1926 met Anthony Gustav de Rothschild (1887-1961). The couple were married in England on 10 June 1926. They spent time at their properties at 42, Hill Street, Berkeley Square, London, and from 1937, at Ascott, Buckinghamshire, and Palace house, Newmarket.
Both Anthony and Yvonne had a deep and eminently practical commitment to public service, particularly for their fellow Jews. During the 1930s it was Yvonne who had first begun to realise the implications of the European situation in the early 1930s. By the autumn of 1933, she had become president of a society 'to aid German Jewish women children'. In December 1933, Yvonne wrote to The Times as President of the Women's Appeal Committee for German Jewish Women and Children. In her letter she appealed to the readers for contributions to facilitate the safe emigration of 530 German Jewish children to England and Palestine. With her husband, she helped to coordinate activity to assist the Jewish victims of racial and religious persecution. Both Anthony and Yvonne worked tirelessly for this cause both during and after the War. On the home front, Anthony and Yvonne offered their house at Ascott for use as a hospital; it became a safe a safe haven for Chelsea Pensioners (who had been bombed out of their London residence), and forty cases of valuable treasures evacuated from London museums and Synagogues.
Yvonne was also an active member of the Buckinghamshire community, elected Rural Councillor in 1946 and Justice of the Peace in 1948. She took her civic duties very seriously and only resigned from them in 1970. Yvonne was closely involved with the building of workers' houses and cottages in the village of Wing, and he was praised for having 'the natural insight of an architect'. Yvonne was President of both the Women's Institute and Women's British Legion for the region. After her husband’s death, Yvonne continued to live at Ascott, in a cottage on the estate with her mother. She died there on 6 January 1977, aged 77.
See also Anthony Gustav de Rothschild »
