Background
CASSEL, Ernest was born on March 3, 1852 in Cologne. Son of Jacob Cassel, banker, Cologne. He was a descendant of Joseph Cassel, a court Jew of the Prince Elector of Cologne from 1668 whose son was purveyor to the court. Ernest was the youngest of three children born to Jacob Cassel, who had a small banking business in Cologne.
Education
Cologne. Order of the Crown of Prussia (1st Class). He was an excellent pupil but left school at the age of fourteen and began working as a bank clerk. In 1869, aged sixteen, Cassel traveled to Liverpool, where he found a position as clerk with a firm of grain merchants.
Career
Commander of the Legion d’Honneur. Commander of Royal Order of Wasa of Sweden. Grand Cordon of Polar Star of Sweden.
Grand Cordon Osmanieh. P.C.; merchant.
The following year he was employed by the Anglo-Egyptian Bank in its Paris branch, but was forced to leave on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. He returned to England, where he joined the London financial house of Bischoffheim and Goldschmidt. Cassel was sent to Constantinople to look into the affairs of a Jewish firm in financial difficulties. After solving this problem and another in connection with Nicaragua, Cassel was promoted and in 1874 was appointed manager of the firm.
One of his early successes in connection with the Erie Railroad in the United States brought Cassel into contact with the American Jewish financier Jacob Schiff, with whom he developed a close friendship. In 1884 Cassel established his own banking business, gaining success in disentangling the affairs of the New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio Railway and in negotiating loans for the Mexican government. In 1878 he acquired the rights in Sweden for the Thomas Process for making basic steel from phosphorus ore and he bought a substantial interest in Swedish mines, steel mills, and railway companies.
In 1878 Cassel married Annette Maxwell and on the day of his marriage became a British subject. Three years later his wife died, and he acceded to her last wish to accept her creed as a Catholic so as not to be separated in the hereafter. This fact was known to few people during his lifetime and was revealed only at his funeral.
Cassel’s public benefactions included hospitals and medical research, education, and numerous other fields. During World War I he was attacked by anti-German extremists in Britain, but even so he assisted the British government to solve its financial problems.
Membership
Clubs: Carlton, Conservative, Garrick.
Personality
Sir Ernest was an epicure and had impeccable taste in art. He was described by Margot Asquith as “a man of natural authority ... dignified, autocratic and wise, with a power of loving those he cared for.” He acted as artistic mentor to Jacob Schiff and helped him assemble a collection of 19th-century French paintings and Oriental jades. Cassel had access to the highest levels of British financial and political power. He had the ear of King Edward VII, to whom he acted as financial adviser. His intimate relation with the king earned him the nickname of Windsor Cassel.