Thomas Sivewright Catto
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The Right Honourable The Lord Catto CBE PC |
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|---|---|
 |
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| Governor of the Bank of England | |
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In office 1944–1949 |
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| Preceded by | Sir Montagu Collet Norman |
| Succeeded by | Cameron Cobbold |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Thomas Sivewright Catto 15 March 1879 Newcastle upon Tyne, England |
| Died | 23 August 1959 (aged 80) Holmbury St Mary, Surrey, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Profession | Merchant, banker |
Thomas Sivewright Catto, 1st Baron Catto CBE PC (15 March 1879 – 23 August 1959) was a Scottish businessman and later Governor of the Bank of England.
Catto was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, to William and Isabella Catto. His father, a shipwright, had moved to Newcastle to find work, but died less than a year after Thomas was born and the family returned to their hometown of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. They later moved back to Newcastle and Catto won a scholarship to Heaton School (later Rutherford College of Technology).
At the age of fifteen, Catto joined the Gordon Steam Shipping Company as a clerk. In 1898 he became secretary to William Horwood Stuart, managing partner of F. A. Mattievich & Co, based in Batumi and Baku, Russia.
In 1904 he was offered the management of the new London office of MacAndrews & Forbes, an American firm with interests in the East, one of whose partners was David Forbes, a fellow Scot with whom he had become friendly in Baku. Catto became a member of the Baltic Exchange. In 1906 he went to Smyrna as Forbes's deputy and travelled extensively in the Near East and Middle East. In 1909 he became a vice-president of the company at their New York office.
Too short to serve in the armed forces during the First World War, he instead became involved in the transport of supplies to Russia and then served as the British Admiralty representative on the Russian Commission to the United States from 1915 to 1917. From 1917 to 1918 he served on the British Food Mission in the United States and in 1918 he was appointed chairman of the Allied Provisions Commission and head of the British Ministry of Food in North America.
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