Silver document case, c.1890, with repoussé decoration, bearing the monogram ‘LWR’ for Lionel Walter, 2nd Lord Rothschild (1868-1937) and the five arrows device of the Rothschild family, derived from Grant of Arms of the Imperal Austrian barony conferred upon the five Rothschild brothers in 1822.
Lionel Walter, 2nd Lord Rothschild
Among the Rothschild family, an interest in the natural world has perhaps been most clearly manifested in the life of Lionel Walter, 2nd Lord Rothschild who amassed the largest collection of taxonomic specimens ever assembled by one individual.
Walter’s interest in natural history began when he was a child, collecting butterflies. Walter knew exactly what he wanted to do when he grew up, announcing at the age of seven, 'Mama, Papa, I am going to make a museum...'. By the time he was ten, he had enough natural history objects to start his first museum, in a garden shed. His collection was to expand, forming the raw material for the publication of over 800 scientific papers and the description of several hundred previously unknown species, many described in his own periodical 'Novitates Zoologicae', published for 45 years.
Walter's Zoological Museum at Tring, now the Natural History Museum Tring survives as a legacy of this remarkable collection.
