London stock exchange, Berlin Börse and family

Summer time. Israel is striking. Every year it repeats itself: last year and before that teachers refused to return to school in Sept. This year it is serious and many, many are striking to raise their standard of living. Hospital doctors want shorter working hours and more money; Social workers the same, young parents want cheaper toddler’s crashes. Everywhere in Israel there are tent cities on the pavements to protest the expensive housing situation. We citizens feel the pinch, especially the doctor’s strike, because all clinics receive only acute cases. I am one of the victims that are supposed to get a total hip replacement and have to wait patiently until it all will be settled.

TENT CITY: Rothschild Boulevard, one of the main thoroughfares in central Tel Aviv, has turned into a Tent City. Housing reform protesters have erected tent cities in other cities in Israel to bring pressure on the government to solve the housing shortage. (Yaira Yasmin/the Epoch Times.

 ~~~

All 4 Schwabacher brothers, (*1.) were very successful in life. In the last blogs I mainly talked about my great grandfather Adolf Schwabacher and his rise in society from a religious Jewish boy to a rich banker in Germany. The time was ripe and emancipation was tolerated. When Adolf started his career as an apprentice to a banker in Würzburg his brother Michel was send to London in the same capacity. That was in 1863.

About ten years later Michel was well established in London. He fell in love with Frederica Sternfeld and married her in 1875. (*1) They settled in Highbury, London, which was at that time still a small place with a manor house and a farm. The majority of the development of the area occurred in two phases; until the 1870s many large villas were built, mostly in the southern part of Highbury. After this time, development went down market with close packed mostly terraced houses being built, mainly in the north of Highbury. Available land continued to be filled with more housing until 1918, but little else changed until after World War II.

I believe that they lived in the Southern area, most probably in one of those large houses. Michel and Fredi (Frederica Sternfeld) had 6 children: Cecily Elisa (Lisa (1876-?), Herman 1877-1917), Ernest 1879-1915), Diana 1880-?), Joseph Max (1882-1916), and Frederick 1886-1915). Place of birth of the first 4 is Islington, which is the overall area including Highbury. Joseph Max was born in Highbury, so I presume that that was a homebirth. And Frederick’s birth was in Hampstead. Did they move there in the mid eighties?  Fredi died at childbirth with her 6^th child, of course he was named Frederick! Her sister Di, Adolf Schwabacher’s wife died from childbed fever with her second daughter (my grandmother). Michel and Fredi had been warned by a Paris gynecologist that another birth would kill her: then they consulted an English specialist who said it would be the best thing to have another child. The Paris doctor had been right.

Tante Lily writes: We were great friends with these cousins as we were taken to England about every two years to visit our maternal grandparents (*2.) and we regarded those cousins almost like sisters and brothers as their and our parents were sisters and brothers respectively. I still remember aunt Fredi coming over the lawn in Highbury – I cannot have been more then 5 or 6 years old – in a pale blue morning gown, she had fair hair and blue eyes and appeared like a fairy figure. I never forgot the sight.

When Fredi died, Hettie Schwabacher went with Di and Lilly a few months later to England to help Uncle Michel in his difficulties with 6 young children. Lilly writes: “Of this visit I chiefly remember the nursery breakfasts at the top of the house and a terrible nursemaid Jenny who ruled the roost. Our cousin Ernie the second of the boys was a little demon and I can still see him running around the table and Jennie boxing his ears. The house was a bedlam and I think mother had a pretty bad time during the months or so we were there.”

In the meantime Uncle Michel went to Frankfurt a/M to make the acquaintance of a young lady, chosen by good friends for him as a wife and mother for his children. That winter (1886) he married Ida Jeanette Baruch (1856-1946). She was known as Aunt Ida and came from a small Jewish family. Most probably she had never set foot outside of her native town. It must have been a terrible challenge to be plunged in this rich man’s household with English maids and six unruly children when only twenty five years old. In 1889 Gertrude Doris was born, it was her only child. Tante Lilly knew her in later years and she admired her for having succeeded without knowing the language, a difficult husband and all those children. Lily found her amusing and very independent. She died at a ripe old age of 81.

 

In the summer following this visit Michel brought four children to Wannsee and they stayed several months to the great delight of Lily Di, Willy and Teddy.  Lilly says:”We had a glorious time, the eight of us. Cousin Lisa (11) was the eldest and a sensible child who helped looking after her brothers and sister. Another cousin joined us: Hedwig (5) Eduard’s youngest daughter. Eduard is the oldest of the 4 Schwabacher brothers.

Capel Court:, London Stock exchange

Michel worked at the London stock exchange. During the last half of the century many foreigners played leading roles in the city of London. After 1870s when Germany was unified and the gold Mark was introduced to create a uniform currency in Germany, the stock market embraced many foreigners that took this opportunity to come to London to deal in securities between different international markets. Actually this was an area which the City’s established merchant banks should have moved into, but in practice they left the trading in international securities for another hundred years to members of the stock exchange, headed by newcomers from abroad. Biedermann, Schwabacher, Lichtenstadt became among others familiar, not always welcome in Capelcourt (stock exchange). Often the hostilities were thinly veiled. (*3.)

Thinly veiled hostilities were always an undercurrent illustrated here by a Punch cartoon from the 1840ies.

This is a remarkable cartoon about the Capel Court stock exchange. One can read a lot into this. Look at the nose and curly hair of the broker being asked for advice!

The Panic of 1873: There was a worldwide stock market crash which is known as the “long Depression” It was caused by the fall in demand for silver internationally, which followed Germany’s decision to abandon the silver standard, the silver Thaler”. In 1871 Bismarck extracted a large repatriation in gold from France after the Prussian-Franco war and ceased minting silver Thaler coins. In 1973 they minted only the gold Mark.

Berlin Börse

While Michel Schwabacher was established in London, Adolf Schwabacher was a very revered banker in Berlin and became the head of the Berlin Börse (stock market).  His opinions and advice were so good that he was nicknamed “Der liebe Gotte” (dear god).

But never the less even if the depression lasted until 1879, by the 80ies the four Schwabacher brothers were wealthy citizens.

 *1. See blogs: “6^th generation: the 4 Schwabacher brothers”, and “Great grandfather’s emancipation.”

*2. See blog: “When I fall in love”

*3. “The city of London, Volume I: A world of its own 1851-1890” by David Kynaston.