1st Life Guards: A William IV Silver Presentation Shield, Paul Storr, London, 1834

Presented in 1835 by Major Henry Bingham Baring to the 1st Regiment of Life Guards.

Possibly deaccessioned or sold in 1922, on the joining of the 1st and 2nd Life Guards.

Acquired in October 1956 from Black, Starr, Frost and Gorham in New York by the grandfather of the consignor.

The presentation inscription reads, "Presented by Major Henry Baring, to the 1st Regt of Life Guards. Jany 1st 1835."

Henry Bingham Baring (1804-1869) was a member of the famous merchant banking family, being a grandson of Sir Thomas Baring, 1st Baronet, through his son Henry, M.P. of Cromer Hall. His mother was Maria Matilda Bingham, daughter of American banker and statesman William Bingham, considered the wealthiest man in the United States at the close of the Revolution.

Baring was a Major in the army and became a Captain in the 1st Regiment of Life Guards in 1822. In 1831 he entered the House of Commons as M.P. for the borough of Callington in Cornwall, controlled by his uncle Alexander Baring; this was disenfranchised in 1832, and in 1833 Major Baring resigned his commssions including the Life Guards. He later became M.P. for Marlborough, Wiltshire, holding that seat until 1868, served as Junior Lord of the Treasury from 1841 to 1846, and was a director of the family bank.

It was traditional for officers to commemorate their service in the Household Cavalry with a gift of silver on their departure, to be displayed in the Officers' Mess; in the 2nd Life Guards it was a gift of silver-gilt. This shield was presumably Baring's gift, impressive and commensurate with his family's wealth. 

Paul Storr was the silversmith of choice for the Household Cavalry, including for William IV's 1831 presentation - as Colonel in Chief of the Regiment - of a pair of silver kettledrums by the maker, today in the Household Cavalry museum. These are presumably the drums with Royal banners that Storr has depicted here, three years later, on the lower rim of the Baring shield.  Another pair of Storr drums, presented by William IV to the 2nd Life Guards, continue to be used today on parade. Into the later 20th century, the Guards' morning cornflakes were presented in a Storr silver soup tureen (a practice now discontinued).

The 1st and 2nd Life Guards were combined in 1922, and at that time much of the silver, particularly of the 2nd Life Guards, was sold or removed by the heirs of the original donors. It may have been at this juncture that the Baring shield left the regimental collection, to reappear in New York in the mid 1950s.

(Much of the information on the Household Cavalry plate collection is drawn from Christopher Joll's 2021 presentation, "Treasures of the Household Cavalry, No. 9: The Zetland Trophy" on Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjXlgsLJO74 ).