Buckmaster & Moore

Buckmaster & Moore (B&M) was a London stockbroker established in 1895 and acquired by Credit Suisse Group in 1987.

Charles Armytage-Moore and Walter Selby Buckmaster were founding partners of a London firm of stockbrokers, Buckmaster and Moore. Buckmaster had been admitted to the Stock Exchange in 1895, and traded with other partners including Douglas Lyon Holms, Harry Walter Franklin, and later Charles James Eglantine Armytage Moore, who was admitted in 1903. The partnership between Buckmaster and Moore started around 1905. The others, Holms and Franklin, dissolved their partnership in 1908.

Both men had been pupils at Repton School, and both were sportsmen. Buckmaster, whilst at Trinity College, Cambridge became Captain of the polo team. He developed into one of the country's leading Polo players, winning silver medals in the 1900 and 1908 Olympic Games. He was also a member of the winning team in the International Polo Cup in 1902. Through his aunt, Maria Sarah Buckmaster (Mrs. Alfred Whitehead), he was a cousin to Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and philosopher.

Moore had joined the Marylebone Cricket Club and played against Hertfordshire in 1904. He was related—through his eldest sister Pricilla—to Hugh Annesley, 5th Earl Annesley in 1892, a British military officer and Member of Parliament for County Cavan, living in Castlewellan Castle, in County Down.

As stockbrokers, they had developed a private client business. They had London offices at 64 Cornhill, EC3 and later 52, Bishopsgate, EC2A. Their Perfined Contract Revenue Stamp identity mark was B&M.¹

One of their partners, Oswald Toynbee ‘foxy’ Falk (1879–1972),² had attended Rugby School, then Balliol College, Oxford (as an exhibitioner), where his uncle, the social philosopher and historian, Arnold Toynbee, once taught. Joining the firm after leaving the Treasury, he began to develop a new view on economics. An earlier partner Francis James Rennell Rodd, Francis Rodd, 2nd Baron Rennell served in the artillery and as an intelligence officer during the First World War, where he befriended T. E. Lawrence, triggering his passion for exploring desert landscapes. He entered the Diplomatic Service in 1919, resigning in 1924, joining the Bank of England and becoming a partner of B&M, resigning in 1929. He became managing director of Morgan, Grenfell & Co.

Another partner was Maurice Bonham-Carter, an English Liberal politician, civil servant, and first-class cricketer. He was H. H. Asquith's Principal Private Secretary during Asquith's time as Prime Minister from 1910 to 1916 and later served in other government posts. He played cricket for Oxford University Cricket Club in the early 20th century. The actress Helena Bonham Carter is his granddaughter.

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), one of the firm's clients (also Bursar of King's College, Cambridge), joined with Falk to form a syndicate to speculate in currency movements. Keynes lost his fortune in 1920 with money borrowed from both his father and Falk. OT Falk eventually became a senior partner. He went on to write many financial papers³ and books which are studied today in Business Schools.

At one time in the late 1920s the firm employed the young Francis Pakenham, later Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, as well as the young Oxford mathematician J. H. C. Whitehead.

Buckmaster lived at Moreton Manor, Moreton Morrell and was Master of the Warwickshire Foxhounds. He married Ida Sarah Blyth in 1896, they had two daughters who never married. He died on 30 October 1942 at Warwick Hospital. Moore lived at Winterfold House in Surrey, married Celine Marie Pappa, daughter of a Greek born stockbroker, in 1917. They had no children and he died in December 1960. Celine died in 1970.

The firm was eventually taken over by Credit Suisse Group in 1987. Buckmaster & Moore was renamed and reorganised into broking and fund management operations. The company was dissolved in November 1996.

OSWALD T. FALK, WALTER S. BUCKMASTER, C. J. E. ARMYTAGE MOORE, IAN MACPHERSON, ARTHUR J. BEAMISH, MAURICE BONHAM-CARTER, J. R. RALLI, R. N. M. MURRAY.

James Michael (Mike) Anson Shemilt (1939-2015)
"I eventually ended up in the 1970s as a partner in a medium-sized (some 50 partners) firm of stockbrokers named Buckmaster & Moore. The firm was perhaps at that time the largest manager of discretionary funds under management in the City. It was still quite novel then to have discretion over the management of a clients money, the norm being that one had to refer to clients for permission before buying & selling shares on their behalf. B & M, driven by its forceful senior partner, Ian Macpherson, had extended this principle to institutional funds as well as private individuals so that at that time the entire portfolios of a number of Cambridge colleges, the Church in Wales & the Provincial Insurance Company among many others (including of course private individuals) were run by B & M on a totally discretionary basis. This put the firm in a very powerful position.
Shortly after I joined B & M there was a bloodless revolution in which the ageing Ian Macpherson was sidelined and a group of younger partners took over the firm and it was decided to expand by attempting to develop a parallel business of selling research ideas to the big institutions in return for large buy and sell orders, whilst retaining and hopefully increasing the investment management side. There was a wind of change in the City. More sophisticated investment & financial vehicles were being introduced and the class system was breaking down with talented people being promoted regardless of their background. This was a welcome change, and a whole raft of new partners were brought in at B & M (including myself). We were a mixed bunch of young men from all levels of the social scale."⁴

Marcus Padley (1961-) an English-born stockbroker and writer, currently resides in Melbourne, Australia.

Buckmaster & Moore was an English stockbroking firm founded around 1900 by Walter Buckmaster—an Olympic polo player and captain of the Cambridge polo team—and his business partner, an alumnus of Repton School. Prior to its later redevelopment, the firm's offices were located at Bishopsgate, London (EC2).

During the early 1980s, institutional norms within the London stockbroking industry differed significantly from modern financial practices:

• Working Hours and Amenities: The typical working day commenced earlier than standard office hours of the era, with morning meetings scheduled for 09:30. To accommodate this, firms routinely provided staff with catered breakfasts; at Buckmaster & Moore, senior partners were attended to by a butler in the boardroom, while junior employees utilized a buffet-style dining hall.
• Workplace Culture: Alcohol and tobacco consumption were deeply integrated into daily operations. While smoking was permitted for all staff, the consumption of cigars and spirits during morning meetings was a privilege reserved exclusively for partners. Heavy drinking during lunch hours was commonplace across the industry, with events like the annual release of Beaujolais Nouveau significantly impacting productivity.
• Market Technology and Volatility: Prior to the "Big Bang" deregulation of 1986, trading volumes and price volatility were low by contemporary standards; a four-point shift in the FTSE All-Share Index was considered highly volatile. At Buckmaster & Moore, market data was monitored via a single 28-inch television screen positioned near the senior partner's desk.
• Price Distribution: Share prices changed infrequently, often remaining stagnant after midday. Updates were manually gathered by Stock Exchange officials (colloquially known as "blue buttons" or "orange buttons"), who walked the trading floor to collect price adjustments from stockjobbers. These jobbers frequently simulated trading activity to stimulate market movement.[1]

John Howard-Smith, FT Adviser Multi-asset Apr 28 2014 ⁵
Statements of 'ordinary account' with Buckmaster and Moore 1920-1945 Cambridge University: Kings College Archive Centre⁶
STOCKBROKERS RELIVE LIFE BEFORE THE BANG City AM 26 OCTOBER 2011 ⁷
Wealth manager profile: Waverton's John Bellamy, Portfolio Adviser 24 OCTOBER 2016,⁸

• Companycheck.co.uk: Buckmaster & Moore