Isaac Pereire
Isaac Pereire | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Léon Bonnat | |
| Member of the Corps législatif | |
| In office 20 December 1863 – ? | |
| Constituency | Pyrénées-Orientales |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 25 November 1806 |
| Died | 12 July 1880 (aged 73) |
| Resting place | Montmartre Cemetery, Paris |
| Spouses |
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| Children |
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| Relatives | Émile Pereire (brother) |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | Chemins de fer de Lyon, Ottoman Bank, railway finance innovations |
Isaac Pereire (25 November 1806 – 12 July 1880) was a French politician and businessman.
Early life
He was born in Bourdeaux to broker and maritime insurer Isaac Rodrigues Pereire (son of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira) and his wife Rebecca Lopès-Fonseca, making him the grandson of the scholar, linguist and speech pathologist Jacob Rodrigue Pereire, nephew of Isaac Rodrigues-Henriques and younger brother of Émile Pereire, who proved closely involved in his fortune and all his financial dealings.[1] Isaac senior welcomed Isaac junior to Paris, where the latter based himself.
Career
He was one of the first administrators of the Chemins de fer de Lyon and created the 3 0/0 type of railway bonds, later adopted by all major French railway companies. He was a member of the Paris committee of the Ottoman Bank from 1863 to 1868. Conseiller général for Perpignan, he was elected deputy to the Corps législatif on 1 June 1863 by the single constituency of Pyrénées-Orientales. That election was invalidated and he was re-elected the following 20 December, sitting in the dynastic majority.[1]
He wrote notable articles on economic questions for the newspaper La Liberté, in which he had bought a large number of shares in 1875 and which later belonged to his son Gustave. He also set up a 100,000 franc prix for the best paper on poverty and - in memory of Jacob Rodrigue Pereire - found an école for deaf-mutes in Paris in 1875. He died at the château d'Armainvilliers in Gretz-Armainvilliers in 1880 and is buried in division 3 of the cimetière de Montmartre.[1]
Personal life
His first marriage was to Rachel da Fonseca (1812-1837), with whom he had :
- Eugène Pereire (1831-1908), financier, businessman, deputy for Tarn
- Georges Pereire (1836-1854)
After Rachel's death, he remarried in 1841 to his niece Fanny Pereire, daughter of his brother Émile and his wife Rachel Rodrigues-Henriques. They had :
- Gustave Pereire (1846-1925), press baron, financier, art patron and father of the writer Alfred Pereire (1879-1957)
- Henriette Pereire (born 1853), wife of Eugène Mir
- Jeanne Sophie Rodrigues Pereire (born 1856), wife of Eduardo Philipson and mother of Dino Philipson
- Édouard Pereire (1855-1876)
Works
- Leçons sur l’industrie et les finances prononcées à la salle de l’Athénée, suivies d’un projet de banque (1832) (BNF Base Gallica)
- Rôle de la Banque de France et organisation du crédit en France (1864)
- Budget de 1877 (1877)
- Question financière (1877)
- La réforme de l'impôt (1877)
- La Question des chemins de fer (1879) (BNF Base Gallica)
- La Question religieuse (1879)
- Politique financière (1879)
References
Further reading
- Helen M. Davies (2015). Emile and Isaac Pereire: Bankers, Socialists and Sephardic Jews in Nineteenth-Century France. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Kurt Grunwald, "Europe's Railways and Jewish Enterprise: German Jews as Pioneers of Railway Promotion." Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 12.1 (1967): 163–209, on Rothschild and the Pereire brothers.