Walter Cunliffe, 1st Baron Cunliffe
Walter Cunliffe, 1st Baron Cunliffe, GBE (3 December 1855 – 6 January 1920) was a British banker who established the merchant banking business of Cunliffe Brothers (after 1920, Goschens & Cunliffe) in London, and who was Governor of the Bank of England from 1913 to 1918, during the critical World War I era. He was created 1st Baron Cunliffe in 1914. He chaired the Cunliffe Committee which reported in 1918 with a plan for the monetary policy of the central bank and government after the war, which helped to shape fiscal policy.
The Lord Cunliffe
3 December 1855
London, England
6 January 1920 (aged 64)
Headley Court, Surrey, England
Banker
Early life and family[edit]
Cunliffe was born in London in 1855, the second eldest of four brothers and two sisters. His father, Roger Cunliffe,[1] helped to finance and negotiate the development of the North Eastern Railway and became a merchant banker in the 1860s. He was educated at Harrow School and at Trinity College, Cambridge.[2]
His brother, Alan Percy Cunliffe (1864–1942), was a landowner and racehorse-owner who married film actress Malvina Longfellow in 1940.[3]
Cunliffe Committee[edit]
As Governor of the Bank of England, Cunliffe chaired the Cunliffe Committee to recommend on the postwar transition of the British economy. The committee reported in 1918 that "it is imperative that after the war, the conditions necessary for the maintenance of an effective gold standard should be restored without delay". Prior to the committee's creation, Cunliffe had criticised the young John Maynard Keynes: "Mr. Keynes, in commercial circles, is not considered to have any knowledge or experience in practical exchange or business problems".