Barclays Bank History Series V

A Genealogical Study of the Families Who Created the Bank 

 

PART V--EAST INDIA COMPANY CONNECTION

Merger by Marriage

 

Sir Josiah Child, chairman of the East India Company (EIC), or perhaps his brother James Child, lived at Streatham House, not far from the Anchor Brewery in Southwark mentioned in previous segments of this history. The brewery was operated by James Child, possibly on behalf of his brother Josiah--employer of  John Howland at the EIC, who married Child's daughter, Elizabeth Child in 1681.

 

Howland had grown up in nearby Tooting Bec, where his ancestors had lived for generations, but after his marriage, he and Elizabeth moved to Streatham and proceeded to have a family. They named their first daughter Elizabeth Howland, and she and her siblings lived at Streatham with their mother, Elizabeth Child Howland, while their father was off with Sir Josiah Child, their grandfather, on important trade business in foreign ports. 

 

Teenage bride and groom

When Elizabeth Howland, was still a child, in May 1695--possibly younger but no older than fourteen--she was married at Streatham to fourteen-year-old Wriothesley Russell. The marriage was contracted by the Russell family who had a long history of political involvement. For example, his grandfather was William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford (1616 -1700), who had been a Member of the House of Commons for Tavistock in 1640, moving to the House of Lords a year later as 5th Earl of Bedford. 

 

In the wars then raging between King Charles I and Parliament, he tried to take both the royalist and the Parliamentary sides, and as a result was distrusted by both factions. At the same time, he watched his own son, also Sir William Russell, be executed for treason against the Catholic King Charles II in 1683. 

 

The Act of Settlement in 1688 brought William of Orange and Mary to the throne as joint Protestant monarchs, and once King Charles II died, the Russell (Bedford) crimes against the Catholic King were pardoned by King William III, who reversed the attainder (March 1689), appointing a House of Commons committee to find out the advisers and promoters of his "murder".  

 

William's father, who "had been named as a petitioner with Lady Russell in the act of reversal, was created a duke, the preamble to the patent describing him as father to Russell, 'the ornament of his age'." 

 

As Shakespeare said, "All's well that end's well."

 

Coronation of William and Mary

The father of the beheaded and now pardoned "traitor" carried the sceptre at the coronation of William and Mary, and was made a member of the Privy Council and given many important offices in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, and Middlesex counties between 1689 and 1700. By allowing his son to be sacrificed, he was vastly rewarded with landed titles to which his grandson, the teenage bridegroom was named successor.

 

John Howland, father of the pre-pubescent bride,  had been amply rewarded as well. Howland received  a tract of land from his employer and father-in-law, Sir Josiah Child. The land located in lower Rotherhithe, about three miles east of Southwark, where the Barclay & Perkins Brewery made ale, was to be the site for the Howland Great Wet Dock--capable of accommodating around 120 ships for use by the East India Company. 

 

Josiah Child, EIC chairman

Sir Josiah Child did not live to see the comple-tion of the docks, which were not fully operational until after 1700. The docks were to be held in the names of the Howlands, their teenage daughter and her husband, Wriothesley Russell, and were financed and built by John Wells and his brother, Richard Wells, from a very successful Rotherhithe shipbuilding family in Surrey, who also owned the Surrey Docks Farm, which had previously built several ships for Sir Josiah Child as head of the East India Company.

The Howland ancestry

 

At the time the entailment deed was drawn, it was not known that Wriothesley Russell would die in 1711 at a young age, having lost his first two infant sons by 1707. Since his eldest child was a girl, named Rachel, for her mother Rachel Wriothesley, all the titles passed in 1711 to the next male heir. 

 

Nevertheless, out of interest, we note the the ancestry of Lady Rachel Russell can be traced back for centuries. The Wriothesleys first received the title as the Earl of Southampton from King Henry VIII--too far back in truth to be relevant to any study of Barclays Bank. But it's still a fascinating fact.

 

What is more interesting, however, is how the East India Company's chairman Child and his successors plotted to gain some political advantage in 1795, simply by what I've labeled a "merger by marriage".

 

 

Click to enlarge.

 

Editors, Finn, Margot C. Finn and Kate Smith, of a book published in 2018, The East India Company at home, 1757-1857, were interested in the interiors of the homes built during this era, and offered an observation of how Chinese designs were prolific at that time.

The Dukes of Bedford used their position as owners of East Indiamen [ships] hired to the Company, and as investors to gain privileged access to these Asian goods. The marriage of the 1st Duke of Bedford’s grandson Wriothsey Russell, Lord Tavistock (1680–1711) to Elizabeth Howland (1682– 1724) in 1695 brought a spectacularly large dowry of near £100,000 (roughly equivalent to £9 million today) into the family whose estates included Thames-side property at Rotherhithe. The marriage also connected the Russells with the Childs of Wanstead House, as Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Sir Josiah Child (1630– 99) whose advocacy of the EIC’s monopoly led directly to his appointment as a Director in 1677, rising to Deputy- Governor and Governor of the Company in 1681.

At Rotherhithe the 1st Duke of Bedford (1613–1700) built the first docks, whose rental brought in a useful income, first from the Greenland, and then the South Sea Companies. At these docks he built the Streatham which was presented by his grandson to the EIC. The Bedford, Tavistock, Russell and Howland followed, all commissioned before 1700, to which were added the Tonqueen, and later the Houghton and Denham.63
The Bedfords invested between one- sixteenth to one- eighth part in the voyages these vessels took, and thereby had considerable holdings in the East India Company.  [Source: The East India Company at Home, 1757– 1857, Edited by Margot Finn and Kate Smith (London: UCL Press, 2018).

 

Clearly, some deal had been made in 1795 by the parents who seemed so desperate to unite two families by marrying off their children. The plot could only have been designed by Sir Josiah Child, who had no sons. He had earlier married off his daughter to John Howland (a lower officer in the East India Company) and had no qualms about using her daughter, Elizabeth Howland in a marriage ritual to connect his family to the powerful Russell family, long close to royalty. 

William Russell, grandfather of bridegroom

The excerpt to the left [Source: Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1–22 (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1921–1922)], citing the historian Macaulay, indicates that William Russell, grandfather of the bridegroom, accepted his new title "somewhat reluctantly." 

 

Does that suggest he was embarrassed to have been involved in the plot? 

Wm. Russell, 1st Duke Bedford

William, the 1st Duke of Bedford, seems to me to have been both pompous and ambitious. The best description would be to call him a chameleon. He was wishy washy, taking turns siding first with one king, then against the next. Nobody knew where he really stood, unlike his son, who maintained his backbone as he literally lost his head.

Hatching the Bribe  

Wanstead

The East India Company apparently first began trading with China in 1699, but did not start selling opium to Chinese merchants until the 1770s. Before that time the Company reaped a significant fortune by virtue of the monopoly granted to it by those in power, and Sir Josiah Child wanted to maintain that connection free of competition. He had acquired enough resources through the trade to acquire an estate in Wanstead, according to Hannah Armstrong, who adds:

When Child purchased Wanstead in 1673, he owned only 2 per cent of [EIC] company stocks. Therefore contrary to common consensus, Child’s acquisition was not financed by East India Company wealth, but by other means such as his role as a founding member of the Royal African Company in 1671, as treasurer to the Navy in Portsmouth, and through the ownership of a sugar plantation in Jamaica and a brewery in Southwark, London.

 But things began quickly changing shortly after he bought Wanstead. Armstrong writes:

East Indianman clipper

Child’s shares in the East India Company equated to £12,000, and by 1679 this had increased to £23,000, making Child the largest stock holder in the Company. Further success came about in 1681 when Child was elected as Governor of the East India Company. In 1684 he served as Deputy Governor, until 1686 when he was once again Governor for another two years. He returned to his position as Deputy Governor again in 1688 until 1690. 

We are told that Sir Josiah Child was not above making bribes to get what he wanted. Armstrong in the same essay just cited tells us:

New East India Co. charter 1698

The London Society Magazine stated that ‘by his great annual presents Child could command both at Court and at Westminster Hall, what he pleased’. In order to secure a royal charter for the East India Company, Child reportedly bribed King Charles II on the 12 October 1681 with 10,000 guineas, an annual bribe until the revolution in 1688. James II also bowed to Child’s domineering nature and renewed the 1682 Royal Charter for the East India Company when given East India shares worth £10,000 in 1687. The 1867 study Citizens of London from 1060-1867, estimated that in 1693, £100,000 were spent in bribery to obtain the new charter for the East India Company.

[Sources: (1) The Merchant Princes of England, London Society, an illustrated Magazine of light and amusing literature for the hours of relaxation (March 1865), Vol 39, p. 264.  (2) Richard Grassby, ‘Child, Sir Josiah, first baronet’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online, www.oxforddnb.com, Accessed: 08/03/2013. and (3) Benjamin Brogden-Orridge, Some Account of the Citizens of London and their Rulers, from 1060-1867 (London:William Tegg,1867), p.174.]

That brings us up to the coronation of William and Mary, when the new king was looking for a way to finance his next war and plot among Howland, Russell, Child and perhaps the King that led to the wedding of the teenage grandchildren and the titles William Russell "somewhat reluctantly" agreed to accept. 

Russell fretted only a short time, then died in 1699. The titles quickly passed down the lineal chain to his grandson, who enjoyed them only until his untimely death at Streatham in 1711, followed within a few years by his wife Elizabeth Howland Russell in 1724. 

East India Co. trade routes in 1800

By this time the Howland Wet Docks at Rotherhithe were busy building numerous East Indiamen owned by the Russell family, who in turn leased them to the EIC, and shared in the rich treasures the ships brought from China and other parts of the world. As for the Child family, they did not last long. The sons dissipated the fortune and never gained any admiration from the peerage. His son Richard Child, "completed the family’s journey from its mercantile origins by purchasing his ennoblement via George I’s mistress the Duchess of Munster (afterwards Kendal). However, he had to wait until 1718 before he was formally gazetted as 'Viscount of Castlemaine in the County of Kerry and Baron of Newtown in the County of Donegal'," thus acquiring a rise in station that caused grumbling on the ground that it “was making a man that’s no gentleman a lord.”

The other descendants of Wriothesley Russell felt themselves, after their parents' deaths, too wealthy to live at Streatham and were happy to rid themselves of it, using Dr. Samuel Johnson as their agent in selling the house and brewery to Hester Thrale. According to Audrey Nona Gamble's History of the Bevan Family, :

Although Silvanus was a Banker by profession, he was also a sleeping partner in Barclay, Perkins’ Brewery at Southwark. This business, formerly Thrale’s Brewery, was sold in 1781, on the death of Henry Thrale, by his executors. The purchasers were nominally Robert Barclay (cousin of Silvanus) and John Perkins, Thrale’s former manager, who had married Amelia, Timothy Paul Bevan’s young widow. 

For the sake of clarity, we set out here the names and statistical information--births, marriages and deaths--of the Russell children who survived. They will also become important subsequently.  

Children of Wriothesley Russell and Elizabeth Howland: 

 
• Rachel Russell, born 1700, married Scroop Thomas Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater, in 1722. A widower, Egerton's first wife had been Elizabeth Churchill, born in 1687 to Queen Anne's best friend, Sarah Jennings Churchill as her third child. Her first child born in 1681 had been Henrietta, who married at age 17 the son of Lord Sidney Godolphin (2nd Earl of Godolphin) on 23 April 1698.
• There followed two sons given the name of their grandfather William, but both died as infants.

• 

  Dictionary of National Biography

  The fourth child, a son named Wriothesley Russell II, born in 1708, lived to become the 3rd Duke of Bedford after his father died in 1711. In April 1725 WRII married his older sister Rachel's stepdaughter--Lady Anne Egerton, daughter of Scroop Egerton and Elizabeth Churchill. A year and one month into this marriage--October 1732--the 3rd Duke died His widow remarried a few months later in June 1733 to become the Countess of Jersey, her new husband being William Villiers, the 3rd Earl of Jersey.
•  John Russell, born in 1710 (who had married Diana Spencer in the fall of 1731) upon the death of his brother in October 1732. His wife Diana gave birth to child who quickly died, and then Diana too died in 1735. In the meantime, the Bedford, Tavistock and Howland titles passed to him, and two years later he remarried. His second wife was  Gertrude Harriet Mary Leveson-Gower, whom we will explore possibly in the next segment of this series.

 

The Bank of England Chartered in July 1794 

We have not forgotten that the title of our series is about the History of Barclays Bank. We promise there's a method to all this apparent madness about kings, queens and empire. We also have not overlooked the historical timeline. 

 

Goldsmith banks on Lombard Street

Possibly the most important date in British history occurred at this same time, only a few months before the young teenagers' grandparents had a big wedding celebration in Streatham. Less than a year earlier, in late July, the King granted a charter to William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England (joint-stock corporation) as the Government's bank. 

 

According to James Edwin Thorold Rogers' book (First Nine Years of the Bank of England), first published in 1887 but still in print today, the bank followed the principles previously established by goldsmith bankers, who stored gold and silver to bank notes they issued as currency. The book is unusual for the fact that the author admits he did not have all the answers to some of the questions that arose during his research into what occurred during that time that would explain the bank's ultimate success. He simply did not understand where all the money came from.

 

He does conclude, however, the following: 

For in point of fact, the history of the Bank of England during its first years is in no slight degree the history of the settlement of 1689, and of the new departure which that great event makes in the politics of the civilised world.

Wanstead location near Hackney

In 1887 Daniel Defoe published his first work called “Essay on Projects,”based on events that occurred around 1694, when he lived at Tooting Bec (located near Streatham), when "the Government received with favour a project of his, which is not included in the Essay, 'for raising money to supply the occasions of the war then newly begun.'”  The timing and location lead me to believe he was part of the plot to explain where the gold for establishing the Bank of England came from. 

One hint contained in that essay indicating the plot is as follows:

These are the men this commission would discover; and here they should find men taxed at £500 stock who are worth £20,000.  Here they should find a certain rich man near Hackney rated to-day in the tax-book at £1,000 stock, and to-morrow offering £27,000 for an estate. Here they should find Sir J— C— perhaps taxed to the king at £5,000 stock, perhaps not so much, whose cash no man can guess at; and multitudes of instances I could give by name without wrong to the gentlemen.

Project to salvage gold

Defoe also made a reference to Sir William Phips, who "brought home a Cargo of Silver of near 200000 [pound sterling], in Pieces of Eight, fish'd up our of the open Sea remote from any shore, from an old Spanish Ship which had been sunk above Forty Years ," and about William Paterson who had invested in the expedition to salvage the ship. Other investors in the salvage enterprise included Christopher Monck, husband of Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of Henry Cavendish. 

Martin Parker, in a simplified modern-day story  titled "How stolen treasure kick-started the Bank of England," about William Phips' diving expedition," explained:

"The money was to be lent at 8% interest and the subscribers would be incorporated in order to manage 'the perpetual fund of interest' which would be produced. The interest would be paid out of levies on ships’ tonnage and wine and beer....The sunken galleon enabled the creation, in 1694, of the Bank of England as a private corporation to act as the government’s banker and owner of the state’s debt. It wasn’t until 1946 that the bank was finally nationalised and the heirs of the original investors were then paid off – though many were difficult to track down."

Could it all have been a ruse to launder opium proceeds from the East India Company?