capitalist Financier philanthropist
Hirsch was born on December 9, 1831 in Munich, Germany. His parents were Baron Joseph von Hirsch auf Gereuth and Caroline Wertheimer. His grandfather, the first Jewish landowner in Bavaria, was ennobled in 1818 with the appellation "auf Gereuth". His father, who was banker to the Bavarian king, was made a baron in 1869. For generations, the family occupied a prominent position in the German Jewish community.
At the age of thirteen, Hirsch was sent to Brussels for schooling.
In 1855, Hirsch became associated with the banking house of Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt, of Brussels, London and Paris. He amassed a large fortune, which he increased by purchasing and working railway concessions in Austria, Turkey and the Balkans, and by speculations in sugar and copper. His best known railway venture was the Chemins de fer Orientaux, a visionary railway project intended to link Vienna to Istanbul. Hirsch lived in great splendour in Paris, where he owned a townhouse on rue de l'Elysée and the Château de Beauregard. He also had residences in London, Hungary, and in what is now the Czech Republic (Veveří, Rosice). Hirsch died on 21 April 1896. Hirsch devoted much of his time to schemes for the relief of Jews in lands where they were persecuted and oppressed. He took a deep interest in the educational work of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, and on two occasions presented the society with gifts of a million francs. For some years, he regularly paid the deficits in the accounts of the Alliance, amounting to several thousand pounds a year. In 1889, he capitalized his donations and presented the society with securities producing an annual income of £16, 000. The greatest charitable enterprise on which Hirsch embarked was in connection with the persecution of the Jews in Russia. He gave £10, 000 to the funds raised for the repatriation of the refugees in 1882, but, feeling that this was a very lame conclusion to the efforts made in western Europe for the relief of the Russian Jews, he offered the Russian Government £2, 000, 000 for the endowment of a system of secular education to be established in the Jewish Pale of Settlement. The Russian Government was willing to accept the money, but declined to allow any foreigner to be concerned in its control or administration.
He took a deep interest in the educational work of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, and on two occasions presented the society
Hirsch got married on 28 June 1855 to Clara Bischoffsheim, daughter of Jonathan-Raphaël Bischoffsheim of Brussels. They had a daughter who died in infancy and a son, Lucien (1856-1887), who predeceased his parents.
