Bankruptcy
In 1865 Peto travelled to America and wrote a book relating his experience. It was the financial problems that he hit the following year that forced him to leave Parliament two years later, despite the support of both William Gladstone (1809-1898) and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) and many others.
Brian and Faith Bowers, describing what happened, write that “as everything that Peto did was on a grand scale, so was his failure”. In 1862 Peto, Betts and Crampton contracted to extend the London, Chatham and Dover Railway from London Bridge through Blackfriars to what is now Holborn Viaduct. On May 11, 1866, they had to suspend payment. The immediate cause was the failure of the previously rock solid Overend, Gurney & Co Bank, on whom they were dependent for funds while the contract was in progress. Peto generally employed directly rather than using subcontractors but this required more capital. Peto had weathered financial crises before but this time there was no escape and the following year he was in the bankruptcy court.
Spurgeon's letter to Peto at the time is preserved in a footnote in Spurgeon's autobiography
A little time ago, I thought of writing to condole with you in the late tempests; but I feel there is far more reason to congratulate you than to sympathise. I have been all over England, in all sorts of society, and I have never heard a word spoken concerning you, in connection with the late affairs, but such as showed profound esteem and unshaken confidence. I do not believe that this ever could have been said of any other man placed in similar circumstances. The respect and hearty sympathy which all sorts of persons bear towards you could never have been so well known to you as they are now by means of the past difficulties.
Peto received a similar letter from Baptist principal Joseph Angus (1816-1902).
The bankruptcy was raised at a Bloomsbury church meeting on July 5, 1867. Dr Brock was asked to write to Peto, who was absent, expressing “in the kindest way the sympathy of the Church with him and with Lady Peto under their heavy trial”. The church agreed to consider the matter further when Peto's affairs were finally arranged. Peto was thankful for the support and assured Brock that his chief concern had been to protect his creditors.
A year later, the bankruptcy proceedings now complete, the matter was raised again. Deacons James Benham (1820-1885), partner in a law firm, and George Kinnear were deputed to investigate and report. Their 5000 word report acknowledges Peto's ready assistance and admits that the system of finance Peto was involved in, though criticised by some, had been common practice. They admitted how difficult the whole process was to follow and that, as in this case, legal fictions were sometimes employed. However, they fully exonerated Peto of all wrongdoing or dishonesty. He had “conducted himself with perfect candour, openness, and integrity”. There were three criticisms, nevertheless. They felt he had put too much power in his own hands, taken on too much liability and had failed to avoid all appearance of evil. A reproof was later administered by the church though there was no church discipline.
One of the church's concerns was that Peto had allowed his name to be associated with others who had ultimately brought his name into disrepute. The Baptist historian J C Carlile (1861-1941) says that “after this catastrophe Sir Morton practically retired from public life”. Another Baptist historian, A C Underwood, observed that he “never again occupied quite the same place among Baptists”. In 1872 he was involved in alterations to the Metropolitan line, however, and work on the Cornish Mineral Railway.
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One of Peto's biographers, Edward C Brooks, writes of Peto as at times flamboyant and one who loved public life and challenges in personal and business life. He was calculating, astute, shrewd, he says, but with a warm heart and generous disposition
- the sort of person you would walk up to and start a long conversation, knowing that there was scarcely a subject in which he lacked interest, be it politics, education, defence, architecture, art, religion, railways, social needs, the care of the poor, disadvantaged, the widow and orphan, all within a local, national, and international framework ...
A man, he concludes “with a rich and varied personality and a wide penetrating vision”. That is surely an accurate assessment of a man of faith who ought to be better known. He died at the age of 80 in 1889 and is buried in the churchyard at Pembury in Kent.
Readers will be interested to know that shortly after the above article was completed a new biography of Peto appeared. Hitting the Buffers by Douglas C Sparkes can be obtained from The Baptist Historical Society.
The article appeared in Reformation Today
