Merchants of War - Barings and Bingham

MERCHANTS OF WAR – BARINGS AND BINGHAM


Revolutionary Bankers from the War of Independence to the Louisiana Purchase


John and Francis Baring established their merchant house in 1762 in Cheapside, London, just one of many attempting to service the huge expansion of world trade at the end of the 18th century. They were finding their feet and beginning to turn a profit in the years running up to the American War of Independence. And yet little more than 25 years later, together with their close associate Hope & Co, they had financed the Louisiana Purchase, and were described later by Richelieu as the “Sixth greatest power in Europe after Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia”. This change from just another merchant house to pre-eminence happened around the time of and just after the American War of Independence and the creation of the United States.

Francis Baring was without doubt the foremost banker of his time. He was perhaps the first to embrace the concept of merchant banking. He combined banking with political influence on both sides of the Atlantic, and became very well connected, and one of these connections was a wealthy Philadelphia merchant and later Senator William Bingham.

This book describes the events and relationships that established Barings Bank as the world’s most powerful merchant bank and the role that family connections played in transforming the United States into the world’s first superpower. Illustrations of the key characters and locations accompany the text. Appendices examine the genealogy of the Baring, Bingham and Willing families and their impact on English aristocracy. The life of Bingham’s wife, Anne Willing Bingham, “the most beautiful woman in all America” is examined in detail. The heritage locations described in the book also feature as an appendix.


This book offers a remarkable insight into the early years of the American nation and the Federalist period. It also charts the life of William Bingham – Benjamin Franklin’s undercover agent who died in England and whose DNA has threaded its way through British aristocracy, allowing him to achieve in death what he failed to in life.

And for students of British banking history are concerned, the book explores the role of the world’s first merchant bank in the political history of the times, and the connections, coincidences and serendipity that led to the bargain of all time, the Louisiana Purchase.

The period covered by this book saw the biggest political and economical changes of any comparable period before or since. The key characters in this book may not all be household names, but they were there, just off stage, making history happen. The book also tells a rattling good story that will be of general interest!


This story ends in 1804; The final chapters tie up the loose ends and set the scene for the next story…the Baring Crisis of 1890 - ”To the Manors Born”.