A couple of days ago was a red-letter day. I was able to return to the British Library for the first time in over three years, visiting London for the first time in nearly four years. It had been my intention to visit the library regularly once I retired, however COVID, lockdowns, other commitments & rail strikes had prevented this.
I have been visiting the library for 30 or more years. Initially, I thought that there were perhaps 30 documents in the catalogues that would be relevant to my particular research, however as time has passed the list to documents to read, just gets longer and longer.
With a spreadsheet of books & documents identified for future reading, the hardest choice was which book or document to pick first.
Several years ago, I had discovered that there was a reference in the British Library catalogue to Sir John Baber (1625-1704) being a bondholder in 1671, 1672 & 1673 in the East India Company.
This was a considerable surprise to me as I had had no idea that this twig of my family tree had had any connection with India before 1763 when Edward Baber arrived in Calcutta as a Writer in Bengal.
This bond had to be the first choice to study. What a document it turned out to be.
Sir John Baber was one of my 8 x great grandfather’s and lived a very interesting life, which I have been researching for several decades.
Sir John Baber was a Physician who had commenced his training at Oxford University in 1642 arriving days before the first major battle of the English Civil War. He was forced to leave in 1646 for exile in the Netherlands where he attended Leiden University studying medicine. He returned to England during the 1650’s and took up practice in Covent Garden in London. On his return he appears to have been engaged in supporting Royalist efforts to bring King Charles II back to the throne.
I don’t know exactly what he did, but whatever it was, had secured for him a knighthood from King Charles II within a few days of the King arriving in London following his restoration to the throne.
Soon afterwards, Sir John was appointed as one of three Royal Physicians. He was required to attend on the King at the Court for 112 days of the year. As the King was young and relatively fit, his duties were not particularly heavy, but he had particularly good access to the King, and he was soon acting as a lobbyist for several groups in the Court. He is primarily known for representing the Presbyterian Interest at the Court acting as a clandestine means of communications between the King and prominent members of the Presbyterian establishment.
He was also associated with several efforts by the Court to fund the King, by methods that did not require the King to have to seek approval from Parliament that was not particularly sympathetic to the King & the Court.
The catalogue entry gave no indication of the extremely interesting volume that the bond was filed inside.
When you order volumes in the India Office section of the British Library, you have to wait for them to be brought up, which typically takes about an hour. The anticipation grows, as you walk to the desk to see if your ordered documents have arrived. You have no idea of just what size the volume or folder might be.
My surprise was great when I was shown the volume lying on a large trolley. The slight young librarian apologised that she was unable to lift it. It was the largest volume that I have ever borrowed, and it was all that I could do to lift it from the trolley onto the desk. It must have weighed about 20 kg.
I later worked out that it contained about 1000 pages of 1670’s paper on about 500 folios.
It was a General Ledger drawn up by two clerks working at the EIC head office at Leadenhall Street in London, between 1671 & 1673. It contains details of very large numbers of different transactions broken down by categories. Most entries at double entry, with details of where goods or money came from on the left-hand page, and details of where payments were made, or goods were dispatched on the right-hand page.
The volume provides the names of hundreds & quite possibly thousands of people from the King down to quite humble seamen & warehouse keepers.
I became so absorbed by the details contained in the Ledger that I decided to photograph as many pages as I was able. I was able to do this on my mobile phone, but as it was not possible to lay the volume flat, and as I had no rig to hold my camera you will have to accept that many of the photos are a bit crooked.
The volume was so large that it was only possible to photograph it by standing over it. Eventually after taking about 360 photos, my phone decided that enough was enough. Something that my back concurred with.
I realised as I went through the 1000 pages, that I already know who quite a few of the people listed are, and some are “old friends.”
The pages above shows the entries for Sir John Baber. John Duncombe listed below was a very young man at the very beginning of his career working for a goldsmith. He would go on to become a banker, MP and be involved in many of the negotiations that led to the founding of the Bank of England.
A photo of a miniature of Sir John Baber, that my great uncle owned, and fortunately lent to an author writing a book called Restoration Rogues.
Sadly, the miniature disappeared in unfortunate circumstances during the 1990's.
I had seen it and held it, but it has disappeared. It was painted by Gibson, whose studio was about 3 doors away from Sir John's house in Henrietta Street in Covent Garden.
There is more about Sir John here http://nick-balmer.blogspot.com/2012/07/covent-garden-sir-john-baber-plague-and.html
Here are the two entries concerning the payment of interest and principle to Sir John Baber.
