The Rothschild family did not operate mines. They financed mines. They refined the metal that came out. They set the price in London for gold.
This lineage goes from 1827 to today. Today the family vehicle is Volex. Volex sells copper cables to AI data centres.
This page is the plain-English version of the Mining & Metals Index. Full archive citations are in the Archive — Rothschild Archive Mining & Metals page.
The timeline, in plain terms
| Year | What the family did | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1827 | James de Rothschild starts gold refining in Paris | Rothschild Archive narrative |
| 1835 | N M Rothschild & Sons takes over the Almadén mercury concession (Spain). Mercury was needed to extract silver and gold. | Rothschild Archive |
| 1842 | Salomon von Rothschild buys Witkowitz Ironworks (now Czech Republic). Archive reference RAL ‘Moscow Papers’ 637/1/253. | Archivist’s Choice Aug 2016 |
| 1848 | Letters of introduction to Valparaíso, Chile — copper trade. | Archivist’s Choice Feb 2018 |
| 1850s | Australian & Californian gold reaches London for refining. | Archivist’s Choice Jan 2020 |
| 1852 | N M Rothschild & Sons takes over the Royal Mint Refinery lease in London. Archive reference RAL 000/2056 (parliamentary papers). | Rothschild Archive — Royal Mint Refinery |
| 1873 | Rio Tinto Company founded. Rothschild-arranged financing syndicate buys the Spanish copper mine. | Rothschild Archive narrative; Riotinto.com history |
| 1880s | Société Le Nickel (SLN) — Rothschild financing of New Caledonia nickel. | Archives Nationales du Monde du Travail, Roubaix, ref 132 AQ |
| 1888 | De Beers Consolidated Mines — Rothschild-arranged financing for Cecil Rhodes (£1m loan from N M Rothschild & Sons). | Rothschild Archive narrative |
| 1919 | The London Gold Fixing begins at New Court (N M Rothschild & Sons head office). The family sets the daily gold price for the next 85 years. | Rothschild Archive narrative; Archivist’s Choice Sep 2019 (Gold Fixing Room flag) |
| 1925 | Mr Stephany’s business trip to Spain on Rothschild Frères Frères business. | Archivist’s Choice Aug 2015 |
| Late C19–WWI | South African gold mines: “leading customers of the [Royal Mint Refinery]” | Rothschild Archive narrative |
| 1909–1938 | South American business telegraphic code books (mining/commodities communications). | Archivist’s Choice Feb 2019 |
| 1967 | Royal Mint Refinery operations sold to Engelhard. The family had run the London gold refinery for 115 years. | Rothschild Archive narrative |
| 2004 | N M Rothschild & Sons withdraws from the daily London Gold Fixing. | Rothschild Archive narrative; Gold Fixing Room flag |
| 2010 | Vallar Plc listed by Nat Rothschild and James Campbell as a cash shell. | FCA NSM; Companies House 07460129 |
| 2011 | Vallar becomes Bumi PLC. Indonesian coal venture. | FCA NSM; Companies House 07460129 |
| 2015 | FCA fines Asia Resource Minerals PLC £4,651,200 for Listing Rule breaches. | FCA Final Notice |
| 15 October 2015 | Nat Rothschild appointed director of Volex PLC. | Companies House 00158956 |
| 2024–2025 | Volex FY2025: data-centre revenue +33% YoY. Data centres now 48.3% of the Complex Industrial Technology segment. | Volex FY2025 prelim |
The line
From 1827 gold refining in Paris.
To Rio Tinto copper (1873).
To Le Nickel (1880).
To De Beers diamonds (1888).
To the Royal Mint Refinery in London running for 115 years.
To setting the London Gold Fix for 85 years.
To Bumi (Indonesian coal, ended in an FCA fine in 2015).
To Volex today: copper interconnect cables sold to the hyperscale and AI data centres.
This is the same metal — copper, gold, silver — financed, refined and traded by Rothschild vehicles for 200 years. The downstream product changes. The metal does not. The connection to the data centres that train AI models is direct: Volex’s copper cables move data between GPUs inside those data centres. Volex’s own words: “hyperscale, cloud and AI-driven infrastructure.” Source: volex.com.
Where the archive records sit
- London house records: The Rothschild Archive, New Court, London. rothschildarchive.org. Some records up to 1945 are accessible; the online catalogue is members-only.
- Paris house records: Archives Nationales du Monde du Travail, Roubaix. Reference 132 AQ for the Rothschild Frères bank fonds. References 1997 19 1 to 108 for absorbed companies and subsidiaries including the Compagnie de chemin de fer du Nord.
- Moscow Papers (records confiscated from Vienna in 1938 and returned via Moscow): held at The Rothschild Archive in London. Reference RAL 637/1/253 covers Witkowitz Ironworks.
Sources
- Rothschild Archive — Royal Mint Refinery: rothschildarchive.org
- Rothschild Archive — Witkowitz: archivists’ choice
- FCA Final Notice 12 June 2015 (Asia Resource Minerals): fca.org.uk
- Volex Data Centres page: volex.com
- Volex FY2025 preliminary results: PDF
- Companies House Volex PLC (00158956): filings