How to use The Guide

The layout of The Guide has been designed to make the Archive both intelligible and accessible to researchers. The collections of the Archive have been divided into the following sections, and then arranged within each section by department creating the records, or provenance. 

To some extent this is an artificial arrangement. For example for records of The London banking house (which form the bulk of the business records collection), records relating to Nathan Rothschild's early business in Manchester have been placed first followed by records generated by departments of the London Bank, N M Rothschild & Sons. These broadly follow the alphabetical order imposed by the first Archivist. As the numbering system of the Old Catalogue follows no archival logic, the compilers of The Guide have imposed an artificial structure on the records within each Department to assist the researcher. For Rothschild family papers, where often the provenance is unknown or the original order of the papers has been disturbed, a more subject-based arrangement has been followed.

Summary of the arrangment of the collections

• The London banking house: papers broadly arranged by creating department of the business and business activity.

• The Frankfurt banking house: papers broadly arranged by creating business and business activity.

• The Paris banking house: papers broadly arranged by creating business and business activity

• The Vienna banking house: papers broadly arranged by creating business and business activity.

• The Naples banking house: papers broadly arranged by creating business and business activity.

• Rothschild family papers: papers broadly arranged by name of Rothschild family member, Rothschild estate, Named Collection, or Institution.

• Other collections: other collections held by the Archive including: Archive Library; Art collections; Cartoon & Caricature Collection; Clock collection; Furniture collection; Miniatures collection; Silver collection.