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Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London, and one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member of the German–British Baring family of merchants and bankers.
A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodities, particularly cloth merchants. Historically, merchant banks' purpose was to facilitate and/or finance production and trade of commodities, hence the name "merchant". Few banks today restrict their activities to such a narrow scope.
Samuel Greg was an Irish-born industrialist and entrepreneur of the early Industrial Revolution and a pioneer of the factory system. He built Quarry Bank Mill, which at his retirement was the largest textile mill in the country. He and his wife Hannah Greg assumed welfare responsibilities for their employees, many of whom were children, building a model village alongside the factory. At the same time, Greg inherited and operated a slave plantation in the West Indies.
Morgan, Grenfell & Co. was a leading London-based investment bank regarded as one of the oldest and once most influential British merchant banks. It had its origins in a merchant banking business commenced by George Peabody. Junius Spencer Morgan became a partner in 1854. After Peabody retired the business was styled J. S. Morgan & Co. In 1910, it was reconstituted as Morgan Grenfell & Co. in recognition of the senior London-based partner, Edward Grenfell, although J. P. Morgan & Co. still held a controlling interest. In the 1930s, it became a commercial bank and the Morgan family relinquished their controlling interest in the business. After a period of retrenchment, it expanded under the management of second Viscount Harcourt in the 1960s. The link with J. P. Morgan & Co. ended completely in the 1980s. The business also became embroiled in the Guinness share-trading fraud at that time. In 1990, Morgan Grenfell was acquired in an agreed deal by its minority shareholder, Deutsche Bank. The use of the Morgan Grenfell name was discontinued by Deutsche Bank in 1999.
Sir Francis Baring, 1st Baronet was an English merchant banker, a member of the Baring family, later becoming the first of the Baring baronets.
Sir Julius Charles Wernher, 1st Baronet was a German-born Randlord, diamond magnate, and art collector who became part of the English establishment.
Brown Shipley is a member of Quintet Private Bank. It is headquartered in London's Moorgate, behind the Bank of England. Brown Shipley offers wealth planning, investment management and lending services for private, corporate and institutional clients. Effective January 2022, the CEO is Calum Brewster.
Hope & Co. was a Dutch bank that existed for two and a half centuries. The bank was located in Amsterdam until 1795; originally it concentrated on Great Britain. From 1750 it played a major part in the finances of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) through Thomas Hope and his brother Adrian. During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) the Hope brothers profited from the Netherlands' neutral position and became very wealthy. The Hopes became heavily involved in the Dutch Caribbean, and Danish West Indies. They specialised in plantation loans, in which the entire produce of the plantation was remitted to the lender, who would supervise its sale in order to secure repayment. In this way, the Hopes helped the plantation economy to become integrated into a global network of financiers and consumers. The Hope family were among the richest in Europe at the time. The family business focused on financing commercial transactions and especially on issuing money loans to monarchs and governments in Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Portugal, Spain, France and America. The bank was famous for having Catherine the Great as their client and Adrian supplied her several times with diamonds.
Banking in the United Kingdom can be considered to have started in the Kingdom of England in the 17th century. The first activity in what later came to be known as banking was by goldsmiths who, after the dissolution of English monasteries by Henry VIII, began to accumulate significant stocks of gold.
Johann Heinrich Schröder was a member of the Hanseatic Schröder family of Hamburg, who settled in London and founded Schroders, one of the United Kingdom's largest investment banks.
Smith's Bank was a series of English banking partnerships in London and the provinces, all controlled by the Smith family that operated between 1658 and 1918. Although Smith's Bank was never a single entity, the first bank was established in Nottingham by Thomas Smith; often dated to 1658, it is believed to be the first bank to be formed outside London.
Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, commonly known as Berenberg Bank and also branded as simply Berenberg, is a multinational full-service private and merchant bank headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.
The British credit crisis of 1772–1773 also known as the crisis of 1772, or the panic of 1772, was a peacetime financial crisis which originated in London and then spread to Scotland and the Dutch Republic. It has been described as the first modern banking crisis faced by the Bank of England. New colonies, as Adam Smith observed, had an insatiable demand for capital. Accompanying the more tangible evidence of wealth creation was a rapid expansion of credit and banking, leading to a rash of speculation and dubious financial innovation. In today’s language, they bought shares on margin.
Jacob Benjamin Wegner was a Norwegian business magnate, estate owner and timber merchant.
Ludwig Erdwin Seyler was a Hamburg merchant, merchant banker and politician. He was by marriage a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg dynasty, and was a partner in the Hamburg firm Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. for 48 years (1788–1836), for 46 years as the company's senior partner. The company name was amended in 1791 to reflect him becoming a partner and has remained unchanged since; he "is practically the 'Co.' in the company name." Seyler was one of the first merchants and bankers from modern Germany to establish trade relations with the United States and East Asia. Much of the company's wealth derived from their position as leading sugar importers from the Americas to the North European market, in combination with their activities as merchants bankers. Seyler was one of Hamburg's leading merchants during the Napoleonic Wars and held several political offices. He served as a member of the French-appointed council of Hamburg and after the Napoleonic Wars as the President of the Commercial Deputation, one of the city-state's main political bodies. Ludwig Seyler was a son of the Swiss-born theatre director Abel Seyler and a son-in-law of the bankers Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg through his marriage to their eldest daughter Anna Henriette Gossler.
The Berenberg family was a Flemish-origined Hanseatic family of merchants, bankers and senators in Hamburg, with branches in London, Livorno and other European cities. The family was descended from the brothers Hans and Paul Berenberg from Antwerp, who came as Protestant refugees to the city-republic of Hamburg following the Fall of Antwerp in 1585 and who established what is now Berenberg Bank in Hamburg in 1590. The Berenbergs were originally cloth merchants and became involved in merchant banking in the 17th century. Having existed continuously since 1590, Berenberg Bank is the world's oldest surviving merchant bank.
Elisabeth Berenberg was a Hamburg heiress, merchant banker and a member of the Berenberg family. She was the last male line member of the Flemish-origined Hanseatic Berenberg banking family in Hamburg, and ancestral mother of the von Berenberg-Gossler family, the current owners of Berenberg Bank. She is also noted as the only woman ever to serve as a partner and take an active leadership role (1790–1800) at Berenberg Bank since the company was established in 1590 by her family.
Antony Gibbs & Sons was a British trading company, established in London in 1802, whose interests spanned trading in cloth, guano, wine and fruit, and led to it becoming involved in banking, shipping and insurance. Having been family-owned via a partnership from its foundation, by the turn of the 20th century it was focused on banking and insurance. Floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1973, it was bought by HSBC in 1981 and formed the basis of its insurance broking arm, now part of global insurance company Marsh & McLennan.
The Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763 in the Netherlands followed the end of the Seven Years' War. At this time prices of grain and other commodities were falling sharply, and the supply of credit dried up due to the decreased value of collateral goods. Many of the banks based in Amsterdam were over-leveraged and were interlinked by complex financial instruments, making them vulnerable to a sudden tightening of credit availability. The crisis was marked by the failure of one large bank - that of De Neufville - and many smaller financial enterprises. The extent of the crisis was mitigated by the provision of additional liquidity by the Bank of Amsterdam, the Dutch central bank. Similarities have been identified between these events and the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
Johann Berenberg was a German merchant and banker. He was a co-owner of Berenberg Bank from 1748, with his brother, senator Paul Berenberg, and after the latter's death in 1768 the sole owner. The bank still bears his name. He was also noted as an art collector and held several public offices in the city-state of Hamburg.
References
- ↑ Bank Archives - The University of Nottingham Dept. of Manuscripts and Special Collections
Bank Archives - The University of Nottingham Dept. of Manuscripts and Special Collections