A Short History of Barchester Green

Barchester Green began life in a garden shed, under the name "Geoffrey Griffiths Insurance & Investment" on the 5^th October 1985.  The first ethical fund had been launched just 16 months before.  Like many, when he first heard of the concept, Geoff thought "Good idea.  I can avoid investing in tobacco companies and South Africa, but what about the prospect of it making a profit?" 

He monitored the fund with increasing surprise as its price surged ahead.   After a year, it had grown by 30%, giving it the tenth place for performance against the 1,100 unit trusts then available in the UK.  This, he saw, was his future, but felt the brokerage he was then working for was not the right place on which to based it, so he branched out on his own.

Having previously worked for the Ecclesiastical Insurance Company for five and a half years, the many clergy clients he knew were the natural focus for the new company.   Soon after the firm was set up, he saw the potential for the company to be much bigger and to outlast his own career, so he took his own name out of the title and renamed it "Barchester Insurance & Investment".  This was a name his chosen market would identify with, due to Trollope's Victorian novels of clergy life and intrigue, "The Barchester Chronicles" - with which all were familiar.  For everyone else, it was a good strong name, so it worked on more than one level.

In January 1988, now in proper offices in the centre of Salisbury, along came Giles Chitty, who was who was the only other adviser selling the Stewardship Fund known to the local Friends Provident representative.  Giles had a huge network of greenstream people due to his environmental background and his time spent at Findhorn Community in the north of Scotland.

By then, several new funds had been launched - including some ecological ones - and the market was taking notice of Barchester.

People were all over the UK were hungry for ethical and environmental funds.  The client base was changing as environmentalists, teachers, medics, social workers, etc, looked to Barchester for financial advice.  It became obvious that Barchester needed a nationwide network of advisers to serve them.  So, in May 1989, the two became partners and set about building up that network - a process which continues, but without Giles, to this day.

In September of the same year, Barchester moved into the former Salisbury offices of the Ecclesiastical Insurance, an interesting move for Geoff.  In 1993, the Department of Trade said that the title suggested that Barchester were underwriters of insurance.  So the title was changed to Barchester Green Investment.

In response to customer demand, Geoff created the Barchester Best of Green fund in 1992, which combined what the company considered the best ethical unit trusts then available.  (The fund management was taken over by the ethical department of stockbrokers in 1994, outperforming the mainline ethical funds for several years - and still manages to beat most of them today.) 

It offered pensions, investment bonds and life policies and also offered access to the Jupiter Ecology fund, something very rare, even today.  Because of interest from development workers in the third world, an offshore version of the fund was launched two years later.   It was the only such fund then available - quite an achievement for a smallish IFA to do this before a major provider.

There were sixteen advisers and six staff by 1997, covering from Scotland to Cornwall when a life change caused Giles to leave the company.   This caused some destabilisation, but with the arrival of Rodney Palmer, a former regional manager of Norwich Union, things got onto an even keel and the company began to move forward once more.  Just in time for the next challenge.

The stockmarket downturn from 1999 to 2003 saw the end of many IFAs, some going broke  and others merging to survive.   At this time, Barchester turned down some substantial offers for the business, in order to remain independent and true to the ethical investment ethos.

BARCHESTER'S STAFF & ADVISERS Barchester tends to keep its staff, which has created, over the years, a family atmosphere, which so many remark upon.   This means that our clients can look forward to many years of consistent service.  So different from bank customers, who see a different adviser every time. 1993 saw the arrival of Vanessa Kelley, currently Barchester's longest serving adviser.  Bernard Lovesy followed her in 1994,       Robin Currie (1995), Jonathon Clark (returned in 2000, but previously with the company from 1989 to 1994), John Ditchfield (2003), Annette Williams (2004), Diane Blackman (2005, but with Barchester as administrator from 1990 to 1997), Tim Bradford (2005), Jason Tse (2006), Andrew Faulkner (2007).   Since 2005, two key figures, David Watson and  Rodney Palmer have retired. Of our admin staff, the longest server is Sarah Safe (1994), Kate Fraser (1998-2005, but returned in 2007), David Inglis (1999), Susan Noel (2003), Jackie Adams (2005), Donna Howell (2006).

On 1^st July 2004, Geoff Griffiths incorporated the company, with Robin Currie and Rodney Palmer becoming directors.  In 2007, both Jackie Adams and John Ditchfield also joined the board, creating a platform for the future running of the company after the retirement of the founder.

It is not surprising at a time when ‘ethical' is the new rock'n'roll that many others want to buy what is the UK's largest and longest-surviving ethical investment specialist IFA.  As Geoff Griffiths moves to his own retirement, his plan for Barchester to become a stakeholder company, owned by the people who work in it, has been enthusiastically accepted.

So the future looks bright for those working in Barchester - and for those who look to it for their ethical financial advice.   This pioneer of ethical investment advice has a new energy flowing through it which should carry it well into the future. 

A greener and more prosperous future for all.