the world of private banking

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THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
United States and Canadian business from the 1820s to 1870 were removed to the
National Archives of Canada in the 1920s, although microfilm copies are available
in London.
Much of the correspondence archive falls into two broad if somewhat
intermingled groups and serves two functions. Most obviously, one records
relationships, projects and services provided, is customer- and transaction-specific
and deals with security issues, acceptance credits, merchanting transactions,
advisory mandates and the like. The second is less obvious but hugely important
and comprises intelligence collected in a number of formats about businesses,
individuals, markets, commodities, political issues, economic conditions, business
confidence and the like. Seen from this perspective, the Baring archive constitutes a
vast information bank dealing with a wide range of subjects in many countries and
reflects the fact that the systematic collection and careful analysis of information
was at the heart of successful merchant banking.
These formats include character reports on businesses, and published materials
such as merchant circulars, newspaper reports, prospectuses and the like. But of
much greater importance is the extensive correspondence regularly received from
correspondents and agents around the world and in particular from Amsterdam,
Boston, Buenos Aires, Calcutta, Canton, Madrid, New Orleans, New York, Paris
and St Petersburg. This provided information and opinions about a huge range
of subjects, especially economic and political factors affecting the markets. An
example is the Ward family’s correspondence from New York. In 1882 – a year
taken entirely at random – several hundred letters to Barings cover, inter alia, the
Ohio & Baltimore Railroad; the West Shore & Buffalo Railroad; finance of cotton
at New Orleans; Massachusetts state finance; trade in nitrate and guano; failure of
merchants at Hong Kong; reports on American iron companies; war risk insurance;
and the political and mercantile situation in Chile and Peru. In 1852, another year
taken at random, the Paris merchant bank of Hottinguers corresponded about the
politics and trade of France; the French Northern Railway; the City of Paris loan;
the Paris-Lyon Railway; Austrian credit; the Ottoman Bank; Swiss and Russian
railways; and Marshal Soult’s picture collection.
By 1900 the organization of Barings’ archives was being transformed as the
firm assumed a well-defined department structure. Twentieth-century archives
are therefore arranged in distinct sections reflecting functions such as security
issuance, credit management, securities management, investment management,
bookkeeping and administration, although cutting across them are the papers of the
partners – known as Partners’ Filing – which deal with strategic issues, negotiation
of major transactions, and relationships with the most important customers and
correspondents.
For more details about the Baring archive, see Guide to The Baring Archive from the
Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century, 3rd edn (London, ING Bank, 2006).