He was born Isaak Seligmann in Baiersdorf, Erlangen-Hochstadt, Bayern, Germany, to David Isaak Seligman and Fanny Steinhardt. He was the youngest of eight brothers, all of whom emigrated to America and became involved in running various branch offices of the merchant banking house J. & W. Seligman & Co., co-founded in Manhattan, New York City in 1846 by Isaak's elder brothers, James and Joseph Seligman. Isaak later changed his name to Isaac, and in August 1857, at the age of 23, Seligman joined his entrepreneurial brothers in the United States.
Merchant banker
Seligman went on to run 'Seligman Brothers', the London branch of the Seligman merchant-banking empire with his brother Leopold, at 18 Austin Friars, EC2.
Marriage
He married 18-year-old Lina Messel in London in 1869. Between 1869 and 1886, Lena bore him three daughters and four sons, the eldest son being Charles David Seligman. His youngest daughter, Edith Babette Seligman, married Charles Samuel Myers' in 1904.
Philanthropist
Seligman was also a fundraiser for, benefactor to, and activist in, a large number of charitable and political organisations including the American Society in London, the Anglo-Jewish Association, the German Association, the Mansion House Committee, the Eighty Club in London, and the Jew's Deaf and Dumb Home, founded by Baroness M. de Rothschild, of which Seligman was the treasurer in 1875.
Seligman and Charles A.V. Conybeare
In 1896, Seligman was appointed joint legal owner and trustee of the 'Tregullow Offices', a former Cornish mine office belonging to the Williams mining-mogul family of Scorrier, Cornwall, by Charles Augustus Vansittart Conybeare, barrister-at-law and MP for Camborne, Cornwall. Seligman was released from his trusteeship in 1902 when Conybeare and his wife sold their property, which originally formed part of a marriage settlement, to mining engineer Charles Rule Williams,
In 1899, Seligman bought 17 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, a grand mansion built in the north Italian villa style, near Arthur Strauss MP, who lived down at the end of the tree-lined boulevard at No. 1 Kensington Palace Gardens. At that time, Seligman's principal home, now part of London's billionaire's row, had at least four reception rooms and 13 bedrooms.
Death
Seligman died a wealthy man in 1928 at the age of 93, leaving a fortune in his will valued at more than GBP 18 million in today's money.
