Merchant and Banker

Tagliaferro was born in Genoa, Italy. The exact date of his birth is not known but he came to Malta soon after the beginning of British rule, i.e. 1800. After several years of residence, he became a naturalized British subject.

In Malta he established himself in business as a shipbroker, merchant, and financier. His banking activities were eventually given a corporate form under the style of ‘B. Tagliaferro e Figli’, a bank that lived on in Malta up to the early 1970s.

But his main activities were mostly concerned with the grain trade and shipbuilding. These were times when there was no steam navigation and no coal depots, although there was still much piracy on the high seas, particularly in the Mediterranean, especially around the Greek archipelago. And yet Tagliaferro’s vessels bravely operated to near and far and they were a common sight in ports like Odessa, Berdiansk, Taganrog, Genoa, and the Ionian Islands. By 1822 he owned five ships which operated regularly between the UK, Malta and the Black Sea.

With the introduction of steamers, the Tagliaferro (now including his son, Girolamo) turned their attention also to the coal trade. Here, they expanded their operations extensively, taking on many supply contracts to steamship lines, and to the warships of various nations. Still later they also became large importers of petroleum products.

In 1851 Tagliaferro was appointed a member of the Malta Currency Board, the government body which was, in a certain sense, the precursor of Malta’s Central Bank. In 1854 he was also nominated to form a council to help the government to run the commercial quays and the administration of lighthouses.

Tagliaferro’s son, and later also his grandson and his nephew kept up the family business tradition, and expanded it also into real estate and other activities. All the Tagliaferros were prominent and very active members and officials of the Malta Chamber of Commerce.

This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.