Harriet Baring

Over the years she contributed about £20,000 to the family coffers, received from her merchant father, William Herring of Croydon, and a cousin, Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury. Her other contributions were her frugality in managing a household accommodated above the business and, between 1768 and 1787, a capacity to bear 10 children who attained adulthood. Later she emerged as a glittering social hostess, and introduced her husband to valuable business contacts. Harriet's sister Mary in 1766 married one of London's leading private bankers, Richard Stone of Martin & Co., with whom Francis Baring's firm had opened an account in 1764.