Wellington’s official dispatch informing the government of his glorious victory at Waterloo on 18 June 1815 did not arrive in London until the evening of 21 June. More than 24 hours earlier the news had reached Nathan Rothschild, head of the English branch of Europe’s most important banking family. He was unfairly accused of keeping the information to himself in order to make a great deal of money. Wellington helped to spread the false rumours, as Alistair Lexden made clear in a letter published in The Times on June 11.
Sir, It is not surprising that Nathan Rothschild was widely believed to have made a killing on the Stock Exchange during the day in which he was the only person in London who knew that Waterloo had been won (letter, June 8). Wellington himself believed the story. He put it around that the great banker’s agent who brought the news from Ostend in “strict silence all the way went with Rothschild to the Stock Exchange where he did his little business”, going on afterwards to see the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool. In fact Liverpool was told at once, but refused to believe the news until corroboration arrived.
Lord Lexden
House of Lords