HIRSCH, MAURICE DE, Baron Hirsch auf Gereuth, in the baronage of Bavaria (1831-1896), German capitalist and philanthropist, was born at Munich on Dec. 9, 1831, the grand son of Baron Jakob von Hirsch, who founded the family fortune. He attended school at Brussels, but when 17 went into business. In 1855 he became associated with the banking house of Bischoffs heim & Goldschmidt, of Brussels, London and Paris. He amassed a fortune, which he increased by purchasing and working railway concessions in Austria, Turkey and the Balkans, and by specula tions in sugar and copper. While living in splendour, he devoted much time to schemes for the relief of his persecuted Hebrew co-religionists, and took a deep interest in the educational work of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, on two occasions presenting the society with a million francs. For some years he regularly paid the deficits 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.
On the 4oth anniversary of Emperor Francis Joseph's accession to the Austrian throne Hirsch gave £500,00o for the establish ment of schools in Galicia and the Bukowina. His greatest chari table enterprise was in connection with the persecution of the Jews in Russia (see ANTI-SEMITISM). He gave £10,000 for the repatriation of the refugees in 1882 and offered the Russian Government £2,000,000 for the endowment of a system of secu lar education in the Jewish pale of settlement. The Russian Gov ernment, while willing to accept, declined to allow any foreigner to be concerned in its -administration. Thereupon Baron de Hirsch devoted the money to a colonization scheme which should enable persecuted Jews to establish themselves in agricultural colonies outside Russia. He founded the Jewish Colonization Association as an English society, with a capital of £2,000,000, and in 1892 presented to it a further £7,000,000. On the death of his wife in 1899 the capital was increased to £11,000,000, of which £1,250,000 went to the Treasury in death duties. This fund, which is probably the greatest charitable trust in the world, is now managed by delegates of Jewish societies, chiefly the Anglo Jewish Association of London and the Alliance Israelite Univer selle of Paris, among whom the shares in the association have been divided. The association, which is prohibited from work ing for profit, possesses large colonies in South America, Canada and Asia Minor, and deals with the whole problem of Jewish per secution, including emigration and distributing agencies, technical schools, co-operative factories, savings and loan banks and model dwellings in the congested Russian jewries.
Baron de Hirsch also founded in 1891 a trust in the United States for the benefit of Jewish immigrants, which he endowed with £493,000. His minor charities were on a princely scale. While in London he distributed over £100,000 among the local hospitals. In this manner he disposed of the whole gross pro ceeds derived from his successes on the English turf. He raced, as he said himself, "for the London hospitals," and in 1892, when his filly, La Fleche, won the Oaks, St. Leger and One Thousand Guineas, his donations from this source amounted to £40,000. Baron de Hirsch married Clara, daughter of Senator Bischoffs heim of Brussels (b. 1833), by whom he had a son and daugh ter, both of whom predeceased him. He died at Ogyalla, near Komorn, in Hungary, April 21, 1896.
For details of Baron de Hirsch's chief charities see the annual reports of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and of the "Administration Cen trale" of the Jewish Colonization Association.