Baring, The firm of Baring Brothers & Co. is one of the greatest financial and commercial houses in the world. The father of its founder was
John Baring, a German cloth manufacturer, who started a small business at Larkbear, near Exeter, England, in the first half of the 18th century. Two of his sons, Francis and John (1730-1816), established in London in 1770 the now existing house.
SIR FRANCIS (1740-1810), born at Larkbear, was deaf from his youth; but receiving a commercial training in the house of Boehm, he overcame all obstacles, and founded a large and successful business. He became a director of the East India Company, and being a staunch supporter of Pitt, was created a baronet by that minister in 1793. He represented Grampound, Chipping Wycombe, and Calne in parliament from 1784 to 1806. He took an active part in the discussions relative to the Bank Restriction Act of 1797, and wrote on this and other financial subjects. At the time of his death he was reckoned the first merchant in Europe, and had amassed a fortune of nearly seven millions.
SIR THOMAS BARING (1772-1848), eldest son of the above, succeeded his father in the baronetcy. He appears to have taken no active part in the business of the firm, being chiefly remarkable as an admirer and encourager of art. His magnificent collection of paintings was dispersed by public sale after his death in April 1848. His fourth son, Charles Thomas (1807-79), Bishop of Durham, was a strong Evangelical, noted for his piety and personal kindness.—For ALEXANDER BARING, see ASHBURTON (LORD).
SIR FRANCIS THORNHILL BARING (1796-1866), son of Sir Thomas, whom he succeeded, was educated at Oxford, where in 1817 he took a double first class. He represented Portsmouth from 1826 till 1865. Under successive Whig governments, he was a Lord of the Treasury, Secretary to the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and first Lord of the Admiralty. He was created Baron Northbrook in 1866, and died 6th September the same year. His son, Thomas George, second Lord Northbrook, was born in 1826, and was successively a Lord of the Admiralty, Under-secretary of State for India, Under-secretary of War, Governor-general of India (1872-76), and First Lord of the Admiralty (1880-85), and was created an earl in 1876.
SIR EVELYN BARING, LORD CROMER, was born in 1841, served in the Royal Artillery, became Secretary to his cousin the Earl of Northbrook, one of the Controllers-general of Egyptian Finance (1879), Finance Minister of India (1880), and resident minister in Egypt from 1883 onwards. He was created a peer in 1892, and holds many orders and distinctions.
THOMAS BARING (1799-1873), brother of the first Lord Northbrook, devoted himself early to commercial pursuits, and also to politics, in which he was a Conservative, thus taking the opposite side to his brother. He entered parliament in 1835, representing the borough of Huntingdon from 1844 till his death. Like the first Lord Ashburton, he had a taste for pictures.
In 1885 the then head of the firm, Edward Charles Baring, was raised to the peerage as Baron Revelstoke. The firm is engaged to a large extent in the negotiation of national loans, in exchange and money-broking, in the produce-trade, home and colonial, and in importation and exportation. In 1890 the firm just tided over a severe crisis.