Miscellaneous series
Safe Documents
From the early-nineteenth century, Barings' offices were equipped with a safe for the custody of documentation relating to transactions. It appears that in the 1890s the safe's contents were reviewed and at least some material was destroyed. The next review occurred in the late-1970s and 1980s, prior to the safe's closure in 1989. A very large quantity of papers relating to Barings' business was then removed and transferred to the archives, and these papers make up this series. Some, but certainly not all, have been catalogued.
The papers include: contract documents for bond issues; letters of indemnity; letters of hypothecation; guarantees; receipts; property deeds including those to 8 Bishopsgate; papers relating to debts due to Barings; and other documentation covering a huge range of subjects. There are, for example, extensive records of the Grant family's Sicilian estates over which Barings held a mortgage which was foreclosed in about the 1860s.
