Frederick was the son of Alexander Baring and Anne Louisa Bingham.¹ ²

 

Frederick's father, Alexander Baring, became head of the family's firm in 1810, and merged the firm Hope & Co. into Baring Brothers & Co. in 1811.³ Whilst a partner in the firm, Alexander played a key role in brokering the Louisiana Purchase by the US government in 1803: he profited significantly from the transfer of territory, which led ultimately to the expansion of slavery in the purchased areas.⁴

 

Alexander also profited - through his role in Baring Brothers - from insuring commodities produced with enslaved labour, and from 'providing banking facilities' to slave owners in the West Indies and the USA, as a report commissioned by English Heritage notes.⁴

 

Alexander sat in the House of Commons for various constituencies between 1806 and 1835.⁵ Despite claiming in Parliament in 1823 that he was essentially a disinterested observer of West Indian slavery - declaring 'I am not myself a West Indian proprietor' - he nonetheless benefitted from awards of compensation to those who owned enslaved people 13 years later.⁴ ⁶ Alexander was one of multiple beneficiaries in three claims for a total of £6,670 19s 5d of compensation for 409 enslaved people in St Kitts.³

 

Notably, by the mid-1830s, (after Alexander's official retirement from the bank in 1830) Baring Brothers 'still had £250,000 invested in mortgages on West Indian estates which represented a sum equivalent to half of the bank’s capital'.⁷ Additionally, in the mid-1820s, Baring Brothers acquired multiple plantations in the Danish colony of St Croix (an island in the then-Danish Virgin Islands, the present-day US Virgin Islands), which used enslaved labour until 1848. In 1841, nearly 500 enslaved people worked on the Baring estates of Upper Bethlehem and Fredensborg in St Croix.⁸

 

This web of financial interests in enslavement contextualises Alexander's political opposition to emancipation: in the House of Commons in 1823, he argued that 'the physical sufferings [of enslaved people] … have been much overstated'.⁶ He even declared that, in his opinion, 'the condition of the Slaves is undoubtedly, in many respects, superior to that of most of the European peasantry', although he added his support for a 'prudent plan of religious instruction' to ameliorate the moral condition of enslaved people.⁹

 

Alexander also recited a common trope among those opposed to emancipation over the next decade: that even discussing amelioration and gradual emancipation of enslaved people would risk inflaming 'insurrection' in the West Indian colonies when news reached enslaved people, especially given that 'the Slaves [outnumbered] the Whites by at least ten to one' there.¹⁰ He added his supposedly paternalistic concern for the welfare of emancipated people - enquiring rhetorically, 'if these children [of enslaved people] are born free, who is to take care of them?' - highlighted that emancipation would ultimately lead to the West Indies leaving 'our colonial system', and emphasised the importance of compensating slave owners if any steps towards emancipation were taken.¹⁰

 

Alexander returned to these themes in Parliament over the next decade, presenting two petitions in April 1826 (one from the Council and Assembly of Antigua, and one from London-based West Indian merchants) criticising anti-slavery campaigners' rhetoric, and calling for any change to be brought about only 'by moderate and well digested measures'.¹¹ In 1828, he attacked what he described as the 'erroneous' claim that the condition of enslaved people was one of 'cruelty and abomination', and he defended the case for gradual change rather than any immediate move towards emancipation during a debate in April 1831.¹¹ He routinely denounced the propaganda created by those in favour of emancipation, arguing in 1831 that their fundamental 'deception' was to represent 'enormities and crimes as the daily and ordinary occurrences of life' for enslaved people.¹²

 

Frederick's mother, Anne Louisa Bingham, was the daughter of William Bingham, a North American landowner and senator from Philadelphia,¹¹ who at one point became (reputedly) the richest man in the USA.¹³ Much of William's wealth had been generated in Martinique, where had worked as an agent for the Continental Congress during the American War of Independence, trading American tobacco and Caribbean molasses.¹⁴ William personally profited from the sale of enslaved people (captured from British ships) in the colony.¹⁴ He financed American privateers, at one point thereby becoming a part owner of 498 enslaved people held on two ships intercepted near Martinique.¹⁵

 

Upon Alexander and Ann Louisa's marriage, Alexander received a marriage settlement of £20,000, and - after William (his father-in-law) died in 1804 - they received almost a third of the income from William's $3 million estate.¹⁶

 

Alexander Baring was immensely wealthy: by his death in 1848, the Legacies of British Slavery project estimates that his wealth amounted to £350,000 (the equivalent of £46.3 million in Britain in 2022).³ The direct contribution of enslavement and investment therein (through Baring Brothers) to his personal fortune is difficult to quantify precisely. Nonetheless, it is clear that Frederick, who matriculated in 1824, must have benefitted indirectly from his father and his maternal grandfather's financial involvement in enslavement. His father in particular was bound into a web of financial interests in enslavement in the Caribbean, and was a consistent opponent of emancipation in the House of Commons.