BARING, William Bingham (1799-1864), of Buckenham House, Brandon, Norfolk; The Grange, nr. Alresford, Hampshire and 12 Great Stanhope Street, London

Alexander Baring, the senior partner in Baring Brothers and Company, who had played a major role in making the firm a leading force in international finance, did not consider the family bank a suitable place for his eldest son, William Bingham.1P. Ziegler, The Sixth Great Power: Barings 1762-1929 (1988), 90. Instead, after leaving Oxford in 1821, he was brought (by means of a yeomanry commission) into the county life of Hampshire, where his father, then Whig Member for Taunton, and Baring uncles Henry, Member for Colchester, and Sir Thomas, Member for Chipping Wycombe, held extensive estates. ‘Tall dark and thin’ in appearance, Baring’s isolation from the family bank was seen by one contemporary as evidence of his ‘mental weakness and even moral inferiority’, though it was not unusual in this period for the eldest son to be kept out of family banking houses.2Ellen Twisleton to her sisters, 7 July 1857, printed in Letters of the Hon. Mrs Edward Twisleton: written to her family, 1852-1862 (1928), 117; Lord Houghton, Monographs personal and social (1873), 234. His engagement in 1822 to the sixteen year-old Lady Harriet Montagu, described as ‘tall and commanding in person, but without any pretensions to good looks’, took his friends and family by surprise.3Houghton, Monographs, 234. Lady Harriet treated her American mother-in-law, whom she believed to be her social inferior, with contempt, prompting one observer to call her ‘the most perfect example of insolent ill-breeding I ever saw’.4Quotation taken from R. Fulford, Glyn’s 1753-1953: six generations in Lombard Street (1953), 69. With her lavish parties at The Grange, however, she became the leading hostess of the day, and was described by Greville as ‘more of a precieuse than any woman I have known’.5Ziegler, Barings, 158; The Greville memoirs, ed. L Strachey and R. Fulford (1938), vii. 285-7. According to Lord Houghton, Baring was ‘an intelligent, diffident but doting husband’ and ‘by nature a dependant and uxorious man’.6J. Pope-Hennessy, Monckton Milnes. The years of promise 1809-1851 (1949), 158; Monckton Milnes. The flight of youth 1851-1885 (1951), 103.

In 1826 Baring had come in for Thetford, where his father had recently purchased considerable estates, and generally supported the Whigs on most major issues. After making way for his brother, Francis, in 1830, he was elected for Callington, where his father owned extensive property, but his support for the second reading of the Grey ministry’s reform bill, 22 Mar. 1831, enraged his increasingly Conservative father, who refused to return him at the 1831 general election. He subsequently offered for Winchester, where his uncle Sir Thomas was an influential landowner, only to withdraw three hours into the poll.7HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 190-2. Baring had made little impact in the pre-Reform Commons, but had gained national attention in 1830 when he was assaulted by a group of ‘Swing’ rioters whom he had confronted at The Grange in his capacity as a Hampshire magistrate.8Ziegler, Barings, 118. His assailant Henry Cooke was subsequently convicted and hanged, prompting William Cobbett to quip that ‘it was worse than treason to knock off the hat of a Baring’.9Quotation taken from G.D.H. Cole, Life of William Cobbett (1924), 367. The matter, though, did not end there. In 1831 Baring was accused of assault by Thomas and Caroline Deacle, who had been acquitted of inciting the Swing rioters. He was subsequently convicted and fined £50 at Winchester assizes, 13 July 1831, but protested his innocence in correspondence to The Times.10The Times, 15-18, 23 July, 2 Aug., 29 Sept., 3 Oct. 1831.

Baring offered again for Winchester as a Reformer at the 1832 general election. He asserted that Grey’s ministry was best placed to remedy any defects in the Reform Act, and after his Conservative opponent withdrew on the first day of the poll, was elected in second place.11Hampshire Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832. A rare attender in his first post-Reform Parliament, he voted against the abolition of army and navy pensions, 14 Feb. 1833, and currency reform, 24 Apr. 1833.12R. Gooch, The book of the reformed Parliament: being a synopsis of the votes of the reformed House of Commons (1834). At the 1835 general election he admitted that his attendance in the Commons had been lacklustre but insisted that this would not be the case in the future, though he refused to expand on his political principles, confirming only that he was ‘an independent man’.13Hampshire Advertiser, 17 Jan. 1835. Returned in second place, he voted with the Conservative ministry on the speakership, 19 Feb. 1835, the address, 26 Feb. 1835, and against Irish church appropriation, 2 Apr. 1835.

Baring, like his father and younger brother, Francis, was now a confirmed Conservative, and he followed Peel into the division lobby on most major issues.14Baring was not, though, on Stanley’s list of Derby Dilly members: R. Stewart, The foundation of the Conservative party, 1830-1867 (1978), 377. He used his handful of known speeches in this Parliament to attack the Whig government’s tithes and Irish church bill, declaring that its proposals afforded a ‘very strong inducement to the Catholic population to diminish by violence the Protestant population’, 7 Aug. 1835. He subsequently proposed alternative legislation, which sought to secure greater revenues for Irish Protestants and vest more power in the ecclesiastical commissioners, but his efforts came to nothing.15Hansard, 7 Aug. 1835, vol. 30, cc. 170-3; 25 Apr. 1836, vol. 33, c. 225. He voted against William Clay’s motion on the corn laws, 16 Mar. 1837, before arguing that the existing restrictions on the processing of foreign corn, in bond, for exportation, should be removed, 21 Mar. 1837. He also urged the Whig ministry not to intervene further in the Spanish rebellion, asserting that it should not be British policy to interfere in the domestic affairs of foreign countries, 19 Apr. 1837.

With his defection to the Conservatives undermining his support at Winchester, Baring came forward for the notoriously corrupt borough of Stafford at the 1837 general election. He presented himself as a staunch defender of the established church and attacked Daniel O’Connell’s political influence and the new poor law, but following a bitter contest, in which he reportedly spent £2,500, he was defeated in third place.16Morning Post, 4 July 1837; Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 July 1837; Greville memoirs, iii. 390. He was, however, almost immediately brought forward, on the recommendation of Peel, as the Conservative candidate for Staffordshire North.17Dyott’s diary, 1781-1845: a selection from the journal of William Dyott, ed. R.W. Jeffrey (1907), ii. 259-60; Standard, 3 Aug. 1837. At the nomination he reiterated his support for the church and constitution against an ‘unscrupulous coalition of Scotch philosophers, Irish agitators and shallow political economists’, and backed by an efficient local party organisation, he was returned at the head of the poll with a commanding majority.18Standard, 3 Aug. 1837. His refusal to contribute to the expenses, however, upset local Tories, one of whom complained that ‘as he is heir to one of the largest fortunes in England, it strikes me as quite unreasonable to expect, and quite unbecoming for him to accept pecuniary aid’, especially when the contest had been ‘short and inexpensive’.19Ralph Sneyd to Lord Sandon, 13 Aug. 1838, Sneyd MSS [now in Keele Univ. Library], qu. by. G.B. Kent, ‘The beginnings of party political organisation in Staffordshire, 1832-41’, North Staffordshire Journal of Field Studies, 1 (1961), 92.

On the rare occasions in which Baring troubled the division lobbies he continued to vote with Peel. He backed Lord Sandon’s motion blaming the government for the Canadian rebellion, 7 Mar. 1838, and opposed the equalisation of the borough and county franchise, 4 June 1839. He remained largely silent in the Commons’ chamber until an attack on his father (now Baron Ashburton) by Charles Villiers provoked him into a series of short and fierce interventions, 5 Apr. 1841. Responding to Ashburton’s contention, made in the Lords, 23 Mar. 1841, that the 1840 select committee on import duties had deliberately taken only evidence that suited their free trade philosophy, Villiers accused Ashburton of making ‘personal, offensive, and unfounded’ comments, prompting Baring to declare that Villiers’s language had been ‘inconsiderate and rash’ and ‘wholly unworthy of notice’.20Hansard, 5 Apr. 1841, vol. 57, cc. 922-3. Baring was wary of moves to reform the sugar duties, arguing that some of the resolutions of the 1840 committee, which he also believed had been conducted impartially, would seriously injure the economies of British colonies.21Ibid. He voted for Peel’s motion of no confidence in the Whig ministry, 4 June 1841.

Baring’s relationship with the North Staffordshire Tories had continued to sour over his reluctance to contribute towards his election expenses, and at the 1841 dissolution he was put up by his father for Thetford, in place of his younger brother, Francis.22Staffordshire Advertiser, 2 Jan. 1841. He was returned at the top of the poll.23Norfolk Chronicle, 3 July 1841. His loyalty to Peel was rewarded with the secretaryship of the board of control for Indian affairs, though Ashburton had initially pressed the premier to give his son the vice-presidency of the board of trade, a position that instead went to Gladstone.24Ashburton to Peel, 29 Aug. 1841, Add. 40486, f. 209; Peel to Ashburton, 3 Sept. 1841, Add. 40487, f. 150. He continued to vote with Peel on all the major issues, including the main clauses of the 1844 factory bill, and backed the Maynooth grant, 3 Apr. 1845. He also chaired select committees on atmospheric railways and metropolitan sewage.25PP 1845 (252), x. 178; PP 1846 (474), x. 535. The full extent of Baring’s select committee service is unclear as committee reports do not clearly distinguish between him and Henry Bingham Baring, Conservative MP for Malborough, 1832-68.

In his capacity as the chief official at Westminster for Indian affairs, Baring performed steadily if unremarkably, and regularly defended the government’s Indian policy in the Commons. He insisted that Roman Catholic soldiers serving in India were afforded as much ‘material and spiritual comforts’ as Protestant ones, 26 Apr. 1842, declared that governors-general in India were being pressed to take steps to abolish slavery in the region, 5 Aug. 1842, and warned against military intervention to suppress the opium trade, 4 Apr. 1843. In his most prominent act at the board of control, he strongly defended Sir Charles Napier, who as commander of the British army in India had controversially annexed the Sindh Province following the insurrection of Muslim rulers. Responding to criticism, Baring assured the House that in publishing correspondence with the Napier, the board had not favoured Napier’s views over those of Major James Outram, the army’s political agent in Lower Sindh, who had opposed Napier’s actions, 12 Feb. 1844.

After three years in government, Baring’s wife, Lady Harriet, grew concerned about his political performance. Concerned that Peel would replace him with Lord Clarendon, she wrote to him that:

I want you to be cautious, and moderate – and cool – and not allow yourself to be excited – for that is your weak point. ... Clarendon is your extreme opposite – no opinions – no chivalry – no earnestness in any cause – but as the necessary consequence, mild, conciliating, persuasive.26Lady Harriet to Baring, 1844 or 1845, quoted in R. Ashton, Thomas and Jane Carlyle: portrait of a marriage (2002), 272.

In February 1845, however, Baring was promoted to paymaster-general, though he had little time to make his mark. In February 1846 he spoke in support of Peel’s controversial decision to repeal the corn laws, arguing that there was now no valid reason left to delay passing the legislation, 19 Feb. 1846. As Ashburton informed Peel, his son was ‘a devoted disciple of the School of Doctrinaires, and everything called Free Trade has with him irresistible attraction’.27Ashburton to Peel, 30 Jan. 1846, Add. 40584, f. 18. Baring, out of paternal loyalty, offered to resign, but Peel rejected the idea as absurd.28Peel to Ashburton, 30 Jan. 1846, ibid., f. 20. He voted for corn law repeal, 15 May 1846, and for the ministry’s Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846.

At the 1847 general election, when he again stood for Thetford, Baring refused to be drawn on his support for free trade, ‘which would only promote dissension where union existed’. At the nomination he avoided all major political questions, choosing to discuss only the promotion of the borough’s railway, and was re-elected unopposed.29Bury and Norwich Post, 4 Aug. 1847. His return to the Commons was brief. On his father’s death in May 1848 he succeeded as second Baron Ashburton. In the Lords he made a handful of contributions to debates concerning the government of India, but was generally an inactive member. Remaining remote from the family bank, Ashburton now devoted his energies to improving the national education system, frequently seeking advice on the matter from Thomas Carlyle, who described Ashburton as ‘the kindest, gentlest, friendliest man in my life’.30Quotation taken from Ashton, Thomas and Jane Carlyle, 424. He was particularly interested in promoting the education of agricultural labourers and introduced a series of prizes at schools in Hampshire that recognised practical and technical knowledge, but nothing further was achieved.31Standard, 25 May 1855; Ashton, Thomas and Jane Carlyle, 347. During the 1850s Ashburton and his wife, whose health was failing, spent a considerable time in Nice and Paris, and in 1855 he was made a commander of the legion of honour by the French government for his services to commerce.32Ibid.; Pope-Hennessy, Monckton Milnes, 1851-1885, 101.

Ashburton died at his residence at The Grange, Hampshire, in March 1864. Although he had only recently recovered from a series of heart attacks, his death, from heart disease, was reportedly unexpected.33The Times, 24, 25 Mar. 1864. Reflecting on Ashburton’s career, Lord Houghton remarked that:

I had much in common with him, mainly the failure of public life, which he bore with a dignity and manliness I have never assumed, but which he felt quite as acutely.34Quotation taken from Pope-Hennessy, Monckton Milnes 1809-1851, 148.

Ashburton left £2,000 to Thomas Carlyle and the rest of his effects, valued at under £180,000, to his second wife, Louisa Caroline Stewart Mackenzie, with whom he had a daughter.35Ashton, Thomas and Jane Carlyle, 432; England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, 1858-1966, 1 June 1864. He was succeeded by his brother Francis as third Baron. Ashburton’s papers and correspondence are held by the Baring Archives, London.