Background
Francis Thornhill Baring was born in Calcutta, India, on 20 April 1796, the eldest son of Sir Thomas Baring, who was the the second Baron Baring.
Francis Thornhill Baring was born in Calcutta, India, on 20 April 1796, the eldest son of Sir Thomas Baring, who was the the second Baron Baring.
He was educated at Winchester and at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with a double first class honors degree (that is, a degree taken in two subjects instead of one and reaching the top class level) in 1817.
His political career began in 1826 when he was elected as a Whig to represent Portsmouth, a seat he kept until 1865. He was committed to constitutional reform and to the subjection of the monarch to Parliament. He was Lord of the Treasury from November 1830 until June 1834, and joint secretary to the Treasury from June to November 1834 and from April 1835 to September 1839. He became chancellor of the exchequer in August 1839, a post he held until September 1841.
This was a turbulent period in his life. His budget proposals, which were published in a pamphlet in 1841, had evoked strong criticism from Sir Robert Peel. The formation of the Peel government brought his tenure in this post to an end; but he did later serve as First Lord of the Admiralty, between 1849 and 1852, in Lord John Russell’s Whig ministry. Thereafter, he played little part in politics.
He died on 6 September 1866. Since then his political achievements have drawn little attention from historians.
He married Jane, the youngest daughter of the Hon. Sir George Grey.
His first wife had died in 1838, and in September 1841 he married Lady Arabella Georgina Howard, second daughter of the Earl of Effingham.