
C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years - artsandsci
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-07-03/the-british-banking-dynasty-that-s-even-older-than-the-rothschilds
======
frereubu
If you're ever in the south west of England, you can visit Stourhead, their
incredible country estate with huge landscaped gardens surrounding a lake,
dotted with Palladian follies. It's now one of the flagship properties of the
National Trust:
[https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stourhead](https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stourhead)

~~~
ascorbic
While the house and grounds are certainly the main attraction (and I'd highly
recommend them), Stourhead has a good little museum about the Hoares too.

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gumby
I wonder if legendary computer scientist Tony Hoare (C. A. R. Hoare) was part
of the family, especially given his three given names.

~~~
mjn
He appears to be a distant relative, yes, but by my count, five generations
removed from any direct connection to the banking business.

Starting with his entry [1] on thepeerage.com, a UK genealogical site for the
upper classes, you can backtrack to find that his great-great grandfather was
a Charles James Hoare [2], who appears, if this Wikipedia entry is the same
person [3], to have been a a Church of England clergyman and himself the son
of a partner in the Hoare private bank. So, C.A.R. Hoare's great-great-great
grandfather was part of the bank. The four generations in between seem to have
been various kinds of upper-middle class government or quasi-government
employees though: clergyman, clergyman, military officer, and colonial civil
servant.

Incidentally, I got the pointer to thepeerage.com from his biography in the
book _Reflections on the Work of C.A.R. Hoare_ , which calls his family
background "somewhat upper-class" and references the site in a footnote.

[1]
[http://thepeerage.com/p14062.htm#i140620](http://thepeerage.com/p14062.htm#i140620)

[2]
[http://thepeerage.com/p39939.htm#i399386](http://thepeerage.com/p39939.htm#i399386)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hoare_(priest)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hoare_\(priest\))

~~~
gumby
Thanks for the spadework!

~~~
mjn
No problem; your question made me curious. Too late to edit, but I wrote it up
on my blog for posterity:
[http://www.kmjn.org/notes/car_hoare_bank.html](http://www.kmjn.org/notes/car_hoare_bank.html)

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JorgeGT
_My bankers are Hoares_ , one of the recurrent puns in Jack Aubrey novels.

~~~
hguant
For someone who loves a pun so much, it's hilarious that he never gets that
one.

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thruflo22
Fun fact, Edward Hoare, one of the owning family, is a mind mapping enthusiast
who created the [https://www.thortspace.com](https://www.thortspace.com)
“collaborative visual thinking tool”.

------
kyrieeschaton
The article keeps saying their advantage is their ability to "find solutions
other banks can't". I don't know what that means. Exotic loan terms?
Collateralizing difficult-to-value assets?

~~~
myrandomcomment
So banking is a complex mess of years and years of regulation that seem to
change when the government does or there is an event. An example for me
personally was trying to buy a house after the crash. (This bit is simplified
vs the details of rules). They changed the loan laws to put incoming as the
key limit on what you could write a loan against. I had made a nice chuck of
money on my last startup and was very lucky enough to be in the position to be
able to write a check for the house. That however would make no sense. The
interest rates where very low and having a mortgage has a tax benefit. The
issue was that I had moved to another startup and traded salary for stock, so
my income was to low to meet the requires for the home loan (they ignore the
fact that my net holdings could cover the house 8x). No major bank could write
the loan. However I was able to find a private bank that because of their
structure and the fact that they carried the paper (did not sell the loan on)
where able to write the loan no issues. I just structured stock sales each
month to cover the mortgage, ignoring my income (which was a number picked to
cover the family expenses less the housing cost). I was only able to set this
all up because it was a private bank that looked at the full picture. That’s
the key value of a bank like this.

~~~
charlesdm
^ very true. Larger banks also do this, but you need someone high up the totem
pole to connect with. Most lower level employees cannot approve these things
and just input things into the system (which has a risk model that spits out a
yes/no answer).

~~~
barrkel
Well, this is one reason to use a mortgage broker who has the contacts and can
work the system for your circumstances.

(My mortgage broker, whom I've never met, has sorted out something similar for
someone who was self-employed. I got his number by word of mouth.)

------
whycombagator
[http://archive.is/OLapf](http://archive.is/OLapf)

------
lifeisstillgood
I think it was Mick Jagger who bought a London "residence" from this family in
the '60s and enjoyed referring to it as "The Hoare House"

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throwaway981238
I'm a customer of Hoare's. AMA.

~~~
whitepoplar
What're some surprising facts about it that are unexpected to an outsider?

~~~
throwaway981238
There's a well in the cellar of their head office.

The partners (who I kinda assumed would be silent) are actively involved in
day-to-day decision-making about stuff like lending and new customer
applications (I met with one of the partners when I applied for an account and
he then had to get the agreement of his partners before they accepted me as a
customer).

Their online banking service is a lot slicker than I expected. While they
obviously make an effort to preserve their offices in the traditional style
you see in the photographs in the linked article, I get the impression that,
behind the scenes, they employ totally up-to-date technology.

They donate a significant chunk of the bank's profits to charity, through the
Golden Bottle Trust -
[https://www.hoaresbank.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/The%...](https://www.hoaresbank.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/The%20Golden%20Bottle%20Trust%20-%202017.pdf)

Their pens are really good.

------
forkLding
Note that Child & Co is actually the oldest bank in Britain, not C.Hoare & Co.

Child & Co. was sold which is likely why its no longer the original banking
dynasty but it is still around.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_%26_Co](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_%26_Co).

~~~
chrisseaton
> Note that Child & Co is actually the oldest bank in Britain, not C.Hoare &
> Co.

The article is about the 'oldest banking dynasty', not the 'oldest bank', so
you're not contradicting anything with your 'actually'.

~~~
ascorbic
It also refers to it as "the oldest surviving independent bank", which is also
true.

------
asimjalis
Any relation to C A R Hoare who invented Quicksort?

~~~
stevekemp
See the previous reply here - but yes, distantly -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20394967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20394967)

------
markus_zhang
I'm wondering why do they decide to gain some publicity now.

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ggm
My mother always said Sir Samuel Hoare (of the pre-WWII Hoare-Laval Crisis)
was put into politics because he was too bloody stupid to be trusted to work
in the family bank.

------
Theodores
I remember in my shop assistant days getting cheques from customers who banked
with them.

It felt like the punchline of an elaborate joke.

At the time I was selling bikes. The kids from the council estate would have
their parents or grandparents save up all year in a special book, paying by
instalments. Then, at Christmas time, they would get a Raleigh bike, not quite
the cheapest but certainly not the most expensive. It would be a nice new bike
though.

Meanwhile, we also had a trade in second hand bikes that customers would trade
in. Out the back would be all kinds of rusting bicycles that had seen better
days.

Some customers would want these rather than the new shiny bikes. So you would
go out the back and find something that would be suitable.

Often a little bit of work would be needed to make these left-over has-been
bicycles saleable. Then you would get further ground down on the price, adding
on components from the workshop that happened to be there, e.g. a new seat or
an OEM chain to replace the orange rusted one on the bike.

The poor child that would have to ride the thing would be actually too small
for it, the parents insisting on the bike the child could 'grow into'. The
council estate kids would actually get the correct size for them, the parents
would save up for a replacement over the coming year. But these kids buying
second hand just had some ungainly monster sized bike that they had to 'grow
into'.

People of wealth don't actually show off their wealth if they are
aristocratic. They still wear the same coat for decades so you can't guess
that they are mansion-dwelling loaded or poor. The accent might give a clue
but if you are customer service driven you just get on with it rather than
make these discrimination thoughts.

So, finally, having been haggled down to make the sale totally not worth it,
there are one of two denouements. The more common one is to kindly offer to
put the bike in the car for them to discover that it is a Range Rover (or posh
Volvo).

The other 'I have been had' denouement was for them to pay by cheque and for
it to be a cheque from this very bank. (payment by cheque dates this story).

Along with the 'drat, I have been had' sinking feeling there is also an
unwritten understanding that you don't ask for the cheque guarantee card. Just
ownership of the chequebook from the bank makes it good enough. By then you
have clocked their scruffy attire is actually aristocratic posh or maybe even
seen the Range Rover.

The rich don't get rich by giving their money away. This lesson was drummed
into me by these moments.

I think that this bank must know this. Their customer is not going to be
flipping houses and cars, forever speculating and living beyond their means.
They pay for the upkeep to the estate, Tarquin's school fees and haggle for
everything else.

The next group of 'least profitable customer' for me happened to be Scottish.
Inevitably if I had a customer with a Scottish accent I kind of knew my boss
would be grilling me later for being tricked into a discount too far or a
freebee too many. There would be a different denouement scenario with your
typical Scottish customer. You would have everything agreed and then if some
shop 50 miles away had allegedly offered them a price 1p cheaper than your
best deal they would be fully willing to walk out on the sale, presumably off
to get that 1p saving elsewhere.

Luckily Scottish customers were few and far between, as were shoplifters,
however, it was the C. Hoare cheque owners (and the other one, Coutts) that
you had to watch out for.

~~~
Bokanovsky
This reminds me a story a friend of mine told me. When he was a kid he had a
job delivering the local free news paper around his local town in the UK. This
was at a time when local free news papers were still a thing.

At Christmas time he had a plan, he knock on the doors of houses on his round
and explain that he was their local paper delivery boy and ask for tips.

He did this first on the part of his route with gated mansions in the area. To
his dismay all he got was sneered at. He tried again on the council house part
of his route and for every house pretty much all occupants were very generous
and appreciating of his work.

At the other end I'm aware of some people who are asset rich, but not that
cash wealthy. They've inherited a huge house or estate, but only have just
enough money to keep things ticking over. Often big estates like that start to
go into disrepair for that reason.

~~~
Theodores
I did newspapers too. The Christmas tips were a goldmine, I did the paid for
papers so there was always a weekly exchange of money.

I had to call my mum out to help me carry the vast amount of loot - if only I
had that money now!

I think that the free newspapers were not welcome by all. Whereas if you are
delivering someone their Daily Telegraph or Times then you are of value to
them. So I received good tips from all classes of people, although there were
the old folk that thought that a 5p tip on a weekly basis was generous. They
might stretch to £1 at Christmas time.

The other benefit of this network - I had something like 100 customers in the
rural shires - was school sponsored walks. I just had to ask the customer base
to sponsor me and I would raise ten times the amount of anyone else.

But with it came an important life lesson...

I was never able to get all of the four figure sum in on time. People would be
on holiday, they would move, they would die or just somehow not be around for
me to ask them for the money they pledged.

Hence I would be at least £50 - £100 short. I didn't want to pay that out of
my own pocket but the school was strict about the rules. They couldn't have
any kids pocketing the money, which is fair enough.

So I never received the prize money for raising the most money. Someone else
would get to the stage in school assembly to get the £10(!) book token and the
kudos that went with it.

My teachers and my friends knew I had raised vastly more than whomever got to
the stage, typically they would have large sums donated by relatives, not
hundreds of small sums pledged by everyone in two villages.

I learned from that more than I would have done had I been up on the stage
collecting the prize. We don't do charity for fame and prizes. The recognition
comes in other ways.

Other ways?

Well, apart from the good causes aspect, I was part of the community. I had a
support network that I would not have had if I was not delivering the papers.
I also got actual respect from my teachers, so years later I was able to do
work placement things for the teacher that had put me through the wringer for
being tardy paying in the vast sums pledged to 'Save the Children'. Also, in
my adult life I think I understand 'personal philanthropy' (not charity)
better than most.

------
epx
And Sir Tony Hoare invented the Quicksort!

------
tro7ghor4
So that front page article title mentioning "Rothschild" has been removed now?

~~~
dang
Yes, we replaced the baity title with the less baity subtitle. Standard
moderation move here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20subtitle&sort=byDate...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20subtitle&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0)

------
bediger4000
So given the comparison to Rothschilds dynasty in the article, why isn't the
Hoare family the target of numerous, vague conspiracy theories and Ben
Garrison cartoons? Better PR agents? Luck?

~~~
unexpected
1) They're old, but they're not that big - book value is "only" 370 million
pounds. 2) They're not Jewish. A lot of the diatribes directed at the
Rothschilds are anti-semitic in origin.

------
ryanmercer
Can anyone comment with the family name, I'm being paywalled for being over my
free views and not interested in paying 10$ for one article.

~~~
phyalow
Just kill javascript on the domain, it will let you through every time.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Hoare_%26_Co](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Hoare_%26_Co)

------
benj111
As there are over 2000 Hoares (oo err) I'm guessing the dividend is kept low
to keep the money with the 'core Hoares' who have the control?

------
zarathustraa
It seems to me like there is a space to become the Gucci/Rolls
Royce/Hermes/... of banking. The place where famous Instagrammers bank.
Expensive, authentic, exclusive, heritage,

~~~
chadash
There are many existing banks that cater to rich people.

~~~
zarathustraa
Name one bank that the average person on the street recognizes as an exclusive
bank that only rich people can afford to use, like they do with Ferarri or
Rolls Royce.

~~~
djpr
I worked with a start-up that focused on providing software for private family
offices. These are for UHNW people who have more than 100 million USD. They do
not want to brag that they go to the Bentley of banks. They want to keep it as
private as possible.

Typically UHNW has a private family office, something between a concierge and
philanthropy and a private investment organization, which maintain
relationships with private banking services provided by Credit Suisse, UBS,
etc. It can cost 1-2 million USD a year to run a private family office.

You never hear about family offices and in some areas you may only see a
discreet sign at a posh building saying "private banking" and all of these
folks want to keep it that way. The branding play here is being tight-lipped
and discrete.

~~~
zarathustraa
I'm well aware.

The Bentley of banks is not for UHNW, just like mass luxury products are
neither.

The Bentley of banks is for people like this:

[https://twitter.com/FloydMayweather/status/11469115382272368...](https://twitter.com/FloydMayweather/status/1146911538227236864)

~~~
djpr
So you're thinking somewhere between the Magnises card by Billy McFarland
(Fyre Festival dude), Soho House, and upper-tier retail banking...that's all
100% instagramable?

I think you're on to something. I wouldn't be surprised if Soho House or other
private clubs work with retail banks towards something like this.

One time, long ago, I had money once, and I was a member of HSBC Premier. It
allowed to me to cut lines at the bank, have a small lounge area, and get free
coffee. But that's about it. I don't think it would cost them too much to sign
a deal with Soho House or WeWork or something like that, and offer tickets to
see Beyonce at some private concert or something like that.

There could be market for something like that.

~~~
elliekelly
That’s basically what Amex Platinum offers. Last I heard they had created an
entire team to focus on wooing the millennial crowd.

