Tessa Baring
Animating force behind several charities who dedicated herself to helping families in difficulty
TESSA BARING, who has died aged 81, might have settled for a life of ease; instead, she gave herself unstintingly to the help and support of the less fortunate. While she thus upheld Christian values, it was essentially her own compassionate nature, rather than any religious commitment, which drove her on. With her intuitive moral sense, and her deep love of children, she discovered that working for those on the edge of desolation was the best guarantee of her own felicity.
Three organisations in particular benefited from her extraordinary energy: St Michael’s Fellowship, which tries to improve the lives of disadvantaged children and their families; the Baring Foundation, which supports various charities; and Barnardo’s, dedicated to helping vulnerable children and young people.
In each of these institutions, and many others, Tessa Baring was universally respected as a vital animating force, not least as a brilliant fund raiser. She knew how to get things done.
More essentially, though, she was never a bleak do-gooder. For all her determination, she was remarkable for her sense of fun, which made work and pleasure indistinguishable, alike for herself and her associates.
She also possessed an uncanny instinct for spotting hidden potential in her fellows, inspiring them to exploit talents which they never knew that they possessed.
Tessa Baring’s life was representative of two different eras. As a child of the 1930s she took time to establish her career. At the end of life she stood as a shining example of feminine potential in the modern world.
She was born Teresa Anne Bridgeman on October 25 1937, the second of four daughters of Sir Maurice Bridgeman, chairman of British Petroleum in the 1960s.
The Bridgeman family is well represented in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Tessa’s grandfather, William Clive Bridgeman – the second name recalling a connection with Lord Clive of India – had served as Home Secretary from 1922 to 1924, and then from 1924 to 1929 as First Lord of the Admiralty in Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative administration.
In this latter capacity Bridgeman successfully resisted pressure from Winston Churchill, then Chancellor of
the Exchequer, to cut down the shipbuilding programme. In 1929 he was rewarded with a Viscountcy.
Meanwhile his formidable wife Caroline had been created DBE for promoting the integration of women – partially enfranchised in 1918 – within the Conservative Party.
Tessa Bridgeman’s father, a man of few words yet strong in presence, integrity and wit, was devoted to his daughters, who found in him a rock against which every possibility might be tested. Her mother, for her part, possessed a vitality which Tessa inherited.
The other mainstay of the children’s lives was their nanny, Lilian Tyler, who joined the family in 1934, aged 21, and stayed with them until her death aged 91, just a month short of 70 years. In all her charges she instilled the importance of kindness and consideration for others.
Tessa was sent to Cheltenham Ladies’ College, but left school at 16 for spells in Paris and Florence, where she became fluent in French and, particularly, Italian. Subsequently, in Rome, she found a job as a ground hostess for Scandinavian Airlines.
Back in London, she took a secretarial course, and then worked at Sotheby’s, and for the literary agent Peter Janson-smith.
Tessa Bridgeman attracted many suitors before marrying Peter Baring in 1960, a match which proved strong and enduring.
Even in her adolescent diaries there had been hints of a more serious purpose beneath the surface gaiety. These ideas matured during a spell in Canada, where Peter Baring had been posted. On her return to England, now 26, Tessa Baring sat her A-levels to take a degree in sociology at the Polytechnic of Central London.
She gave birth to her eldest son, Guy, during these studies, while her second son Max appeared a few weeks after her finals.
The polytechnic was so impressed with her work that they invited her to teach there. Tessa Baring was now clear, however, that her life would be dedicated to social work in the voluntary sector. In 1974 she joined St Michael’s Fellowship in Streatham, where she would stay for 33 years, as chairman from 1987 to 1993.
With her colleague Sue Pettigrew she strove to keep families together, in particular challenging the assumption that children whose parents, or parent, suffered learning or other difficulties should be taken into the care of the state.
Yet, while jealously guarding the independence of St Michael’s, she was eager to embrace government as a partner. Working with the Environment department, Tessa Baring developed projects in connection with the London and Quadrant Housing Trust.
The most important of these was the opening of a new home for challenged families in Herne Hill, south London. Eventually St Michael’s would run four residential houses, allowing the Fellowship to maintain some 25 children in domestic security.
The Baring Foundation, which Tessa Baring also joined in 1974, becoming a trustee from 1985 and chairman from 2004 to 2008, was another voluntary organisation which combated discrimination and disadvantage. Up to 1995 the Foundation depended for 85 per cent of its income upon its parent bank.
In 1995, however, Barings, led by Tessa’s husband Peter, was ruined by the depredations of the rogue trader Nick Leeson. This disaster struck Tessa, hardly less than Peter Baring, especially hard.
She was determined, nevertheless, that the fall of Barings should not signal the end of the Foundation. Fortunately the Dutch ING company, which took over the remnants of the bank, proved to be sympathetic.
Tessa Baring, for her part, proved adept at turning the loss of funds to positive account, at once increasing efficiency and launching new projects. In particular, she pioneered new work involving parents with learning difficulties. At Barnardo’s, where she was a trustee from 1976 to 1999, and chair from 1987 to 1993, she always sought to ensure that the welfare of children should trump the machinations of bureaucracy.
Never content with handing down edicts, she insisted upon visiting the children to see how policies made on high were working out on the ground. There was not the least sense of the Lady Bountiful about this: quite the opposite, she inspired wide affection by regarding everyone at Barnardo’s as her friend.
At the same time, Tessa Baring could be decisive. When the question of a new logo for Barnardo’s came up, causing much debate, she announced that she would tell the board what should happen and invite them to agree. The resultant logo is still much the same today.
In 1994 Tessa Baring’s unrivalled knowledge of the voluntary sector made her a natural choice as a founding member of the National Lottery Charities Board, where she served as chairman of the Policy Development Committee.
Among other appointments, she was a trustee of the Mental Health Foundation from 1989 to 1999, with a particular interest in learning disabilities; a member of the Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster Family Health Service Authority; a Charity Commissioner; trustee and vice-chair (1998-2005) of Practical Action, which aimed to set technology at the service of the poor; a member of the Advisory Council for Voluntary Organisations; and on the committee of Autism Speaks.
She was also chairwoman of the Association of Charitable Foundations (1994-95); and, at the same time, of the Deregulation Task Force for the Charitable and Voluntary Sector. Through the latter organisation she encountered the prime minister, John Major, whom she much admired, though she herself was never particularly interested in politics.
Tessa Baring was appointed CBE in 1998.
She and her husband both loved music, and were devotees of Glyndebourne.
Peter Baring survives her, together with their three sons.