Barings' agents abroad
On 10th April 1832 Joshua Bates senior partner at Baring Brothers wrote in his diary, “This should make us determined in future where we have any doubts to insist on seeing the state of affairs of our debtors in person or by an agent sent to the spot”. He was writing after the failure of Sillem & Co, a Hamburg based firm, indebted to Barings for £15,000.
His advice was followed and thereafter the reports of Barings’ Agents from such widely separated places as St Petersburg, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Boston, Mass make an important contribution to The Baring Archive.
In addition to regular correspondence personnel were required for special missions abroad. The two people most frequently used in the mid 19th century were Francis Falconnet and of course the subject of this exhibition George White.
Francis de Pallesieux Falconnet’s first dealings with Barings had been as a merchant in Naples in the 1830s. In contrast to White he does not seem ever to have been a regular member of staff at No. 8 Bishopsgate, Barings' office in London. His first mission was to Buenos Aires in 1842-5, when he reported (amongst other things) the guerrilla activities of Garibaldi. He continued to assist Barings until about 1860 with missions to Madrid, Paris and Mexico on behalf of the firm. Falconnet died in 1861, thereafter White would carry out special missions on behalf of the bank.