Jonathan Backhouse

This article is about the British banker. For his grandfather, also a banker, see Jonathan Backhouse (1779–1842).

Sir Jonathan Edmund Backhouse, 1st Baronet (15 November 1849 – 27 July 1918) was a British banker.

Backhouse was a director of Backhouse's Bank the family bank in Darlington, County Durham, which merged with Barclays Bank, of which he became a director. He was created a baronet in 1901

He served as a Justice of the Peace (J.P.) for Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire. He was for many years an active Liberal Unionist. In 1881 he was resident at The Rookery, Middleton Tyas, North Yorkshire.

He was the son of Edmund Backhouse, Member of Parliament for Darlington, and his wife, Juliet (born Fox). He married Florence, daughter of Sir John Salisbury-Trelawny, 9th Baronet. They had six children (five sons and a daughter), most of whom distinguished themselves, though in different ways. Of these, the most famous was the fourth son, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Backhouse who was First Sea Lord from 1938-39.

Their eldest son, Edmund, garnered posthumous notoriety following the publication in 1976 of his biography by Hugh Trevor-Roper, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, in which Edmund was exposed as a serial forger and confidence trickster.

Sources

• Who was who
• The Times, 29 July 1918, pg. 9; Issue 41854; col F Obituary "Sir J. E. Backhouse".