Bingham Baring, 2nd Baron Ashburton

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable

| name = The Lord Ashburton

| honorific-suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|PC|DL|FRS}}

| image = Bingham Baring, 2nd Baron Ashburton.jpg

| imagesize =

| caption =

| office = Member of the House of Lords

| status = Lord Temporal

| term_start = 12 May 1848

| predecessor = The 1st Baron Ashburton

| term_end = 23 March 1864

| successor = The 3rd Baron Ashburton

| office1 = Paymaster General

| term_start1 = 1 March 1845

| term_end1 = February 1846

| monarch1 = Queen Victoria

| primeminister1 = Sir Robert Peel

| predecessor1 = Sir Edward Knatchbull

| successor1 = Thomas Babington Macaulay

| birth_date = {{birth date|1799|6||df=y}}

| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

| death_date = {{death date|1864|3|23|df=y}} (aged 64)

| death_place = The Grange, Hampshire

| nationality = British

| party = Whig (to 1837)
Tory from 1837

| alma_mater = Oriel College, Oxford

| spouse = (1) Lady Harriet Montagu
m. 1823; d. 1857
(2) Louisa Stewart-Mackenzie
m. 1858; wid. 1864

}}

William Bingham Baring, 2nd Baron Ashburton, {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|PC|DL|FRS}} (June 1799 – 23 March 1864), was a British businessman and a Whig politician who later became a Tory.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Baring, William Bingham}}

Background and education

William Bingham Baring was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in June 1799, the eldest son of the politician and banker Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton (1773–1848), and his wife Ann Louisa (died 1848), daughter of William Bingham.{{Cite ODNB|id=1386|title=Baring [née Montagu], Harriet Mary, Lady Ashburton (1805–1857), literary hostess|last=Reynolds |first=K. D.}}Charles Mosley, editor. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition, 2 volumes (Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 1999), volume 1, page 120. He was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated in classics in 1821. He received a Master of Arts in 1836 and an Honorary Doctorate of Civil Law in 1856.{{cite book | last = Dod | first = Robert P. | title = The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland | year = 1860 | publisher = Whitaker and Co. | location = London | pages = 95 }}

Political career

Baring sat as Member of Parliament for Thetford between 1826 and 1830 and 1841 and 1848,{{Cite web |url=http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Tcommons1.htm |title=leighrayment.com House of Commons: Tain Burghs to Tipperary North |access-date=4 September 2009 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715114458/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Tcommons1.htm |archive-date=15 July 2018 }} for Callington between 1830 and 1831,{{Cite web |url=http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Ccommons1.htm |title=leighrayment.com House of Commons: Caernarfon to Cambridgeshire South West |access-date=4 September 2009 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713201725/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Ccommons1.htm |archive-date=13 July 2011 }} for Winchester between 1832 and 1837,{{Cite web |url=http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Wcommons4.htm |title=leighrayment.com House of Commons: Wigan to Withington |access-date=4 September 2009 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090810231735/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Wcommons4.htm |archive-date=10 August 2009 }} and for Staffordshire North between 1837 and 1841.{{Cite web |url=http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Scommons4.htm |title=leighrayment.com House of Commons: Southend to Stamford |access-date=4 September 2009 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181023222933/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Scommons4.htm |archive-date=23 October 2018 }} He was elected as a Whig in 1832 and 1835, and from 1837 as a Tory.{{cite book

|last=Craig

|first=F. W. S.

|author-link= F. W. S. Craig

|title=British parliamentary election results 1832–1885

|orig-year=1977

|edition= 2nd

|year=1989

|publisher= Parliamentary Research Services

|location=Chichester

|isbn= 0-900178-26-4

|pages=334, 456, 305

}} He served under Sir Robert Peel as Joint Secretary to the Board of Control from 1841 to 1845 and as Paymaster General, with a seat in the Cabinet, from 1845 to 1846.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} In 1845 he was sworn of the Privy Council.{{London Gazette |issue=20484 |date=1 July 1845 |page=1931}} In 1848 he succeeded his father in the barony and entered the House of Lords.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

Baring was a member of the Canterbury Association from 27 May 1848.{{cite book

| pages = 14–16

| last=Blain

| first=Rev. Michael

| title=The Canterbury Association (1848–1852): A Study of Its Members' Connections

| year=2007

| publisher=Project Canterbury |location=Christchurch

| url= http://anglicanhistory.org/nz/blain_canterbury2007.pdf

| access-date= 20 March 2013

}} He was a commandeur of the Légion d'honneur, awarded for his services to commerce. He served as captain in the Hampshire Yeomanry Cavalry. In 1853, he was appointed to be a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Southampton.{{London Gazette |issue=6272 |date=12 April 1853 |page=300 |city=Edinburgh}} In 1854 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.{{cite web |publisher=Royal Society |title=Fellows 1660–2007 |url=https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/about-us/fellowship/Fellows1660-2007.pdf |access-date=9 October 2016}} One of his on-going legacies is the National Rifle Association's competition for the Ashburton Shield which was donated by Lord Ashburton in 1861.Edward Walford, (2006 reprinted), Greater London. A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places. Volume 2, p. 508, (Adamant Media Corporation).

Family

Lord Ashburton married as his first wife, Lady Harriet Mary Montagu,{{cite web|last1=Watts|first1=George Frederic|title=Portrait of Lady Ashburton|url=http://www.artflakes.com/en/products/portrait-of-lady-ashburton|publisher=ArtFlakes|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715021148/http://www.artflakes.com/en/products/portrait-of-lady-ashburton|archive-date=15 July 2014}} eldest daughter of George Montagu, 6th Earl of Sandwich, on 12 April 1823.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} Their only child, Alexander Montagu Baring (1828–1830), died as an infant. Lady Harriet is well known for inspiring the devotion of Thomas Carlyle, to the great dismay of his wife Jane Welsh Carlyle.Kenneth J. Fielding, David R. Sorensen (ed) Jane Carlyle: newly selected letters, Ashgate, 2004, pp. xiv–xvi. Lady Harriet died on 4 May 1857, aged 51.

File:Bain News Service. LOC ggbain.07321. Lady Ashburton (cropped).jpg

Lord Ashburton married as his second wife Louisa Caroline Stewart-Mackenzie, youngest daughter of James Alexander Stewart-Mackenzie, on 17 November 1858. They had one daughter, Mary Florence (named after Florence NightingaleSherwood, Dolly, Harriet Hosmer: American Sculptor 1830–1908, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, 1991 p. 266.), born on 26 June 1860 at Bath House, Piccadilly, London (a site now occupied by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority), who married William Compton, 5th Marquess of Northampton. Lord Ashburton died at The Grange, Hertfordshire, in March 1864, aged 64.

He was succeeded in the barony by his younger brother Francis. Lady Ashburton subsequently had an intimate relationship with the sculptor Harriet Hosmer.Dolly Sherwood, Harriet Hosmer, University of Missouri Press, pp. 102–3; 270–3. Lady Ashburton died in London in February 1903, aged 75.{{cite ODNB |last1=Surtees |first1=Virginia |title=Baring [née Stewart-Mackenzie], Louisa Caroline, Lady Ashburton (1827–1903) |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/50780?docPos=14|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/50780 |date=2004}}

Eponymous

The Ashburton River in New Zealand and the town of the same name located on the river were named by the chief surveyor of the Canterbury Association, Joseph Thomas, after Lord Ashburton.