Constance de Rothschild

Constance ('Connie') de Rothschild, (later Constance Flower, Lady Battersea) spent her earliest years in Paris with her family. In 1847, she moved back to London where she had been born on 29 April 1843, the daughter of Sir Anthony and Lady Louise de Rothschild. She enjoyed a thorough education, including drawing lessons, which were enlivened by sessions of whist with her father. As a girl, Connie became involved with educational issues at the Jews' Free School and around the family estate of Aston Clinton. The infant school in the village was a gift to her on her 16th birthday - at her request. Some of her lessons were published as well as her Reminiscences, some verses and a story set around Aston Clinton. After her marriage to Cyril Flower, Lord Battersea in 1877, Constance combined a lavish social life with charitable activities. Profoundly committed to the social concern instilled in her by her mother, Constance became active in English philanthropy, and became engaged in the temperance movement, taking the Pledge in 1884, and joining the British Women’s Temperance Association in the 1890s. She eventually became a leader of temperance campaigns in London and the provinces. She co-founded the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women, a distinctively Jewish association to shelter and support Jewish immigrants. Through her work, she was instrumental in the emergence of Anglo-Jewish feminism. Lord and Lady Battersea were noted for their philanthropy toward working-class people. She was appointed by the British government to the board of Aylesbury Women's Prison. She died on 22 November 1931.