Rózsika Rothschild (née von Wertheimstein) (1870-1940)

Rózsika, the Hon. Mrs Charles Rothschild was born in 1870 in Nagyvárad, then in Austria-Hungary, as the Honourable Rózsika Wertheimstein, daughter of a retired army officer, Baron Alfred Edler von Wertheimstein. Rózsika was a descendent of a Jewish family who were one of the wealthiest families in Europe and had made their fortune in the 17th century. She grew up as one of seven children. She was fiercely intelligent, multi-lingual and a champion lawn tennis player in Hungary.

In 1907, she married the banker and entomologist Charles Rothschild (1877-1923). The couple had first met when Charles was on a butterfly-collecting trip in the Carpathian Mountains. The couple married in Vienna, and although the family mainly lived at their estate, Ashton Wold in Northamptonshire, Charles became particularly attached to Hungary. The family maintained a London house, Arundel House, Palace Green in Kensington. Charles and Rozsika had had four children, Miriam Louisa Rothschild (1908–2005), a natural scientist, Elizabeth Charlotte Rothschild (1909–1988), (known as 'Liberty'), Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild (1910–1990), (later to become Victor, 3rd Lord Rothschild) and Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild (1913–1988), (known as 'Nica', later Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter). 

After the tragically early death of her husband in 1923, she brought up her four children alone, and was to endure the pain of the loss of almost her entire continental family during the Second World War. She spent her last years in London.

See also Nathaniel (Charles) Rothschild »