Even for those far from the front, the experience of war was terrifying.
Londoners lived in fear of German air raids. At the insistence of Alfred de Rothschild (1842-1918), the Dividend Office gallery at New Court was packed with sandbags to protect the Bullion Room below, and an air raid shelter was built in the corner of the Drawn Bond Department. The Royal Mint Refinery, owned and run by the Rothschilds since 1852, was converted to munitions production, and a special system designed to relay air raid warnings to New Court.
The Rothschilds, along with many others, subscribed to charities and organisations sending parcels of food and luxuries to troops at the front. This Harrods receipt shows Alfred de Rothschild sending cases of Christmas turkeys and champagne to the Red Cross Hospital, British Expeditionary Forces, France in 1917.
