 Having been educated privately as a child, he read classics and mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, before ordination, and was President of the Oxford Union.He first married Mary Sealy (who died in 1840) in 1830; they had at least one child – Tory politician Thomas Baring was their son.He later remarried in 1846, his cousin Caroline Kemp, with whom he had further children – their son Francis became a priest.