MEETING THE MERCHANTS

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Watch parts one and two of an extended interview with Master Merchant Denis Burn

"Who are the Merchant Venturers?"

"What is in it for you?"

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For five centuries, a small group of wealthy men has exerted enormous influence over the city of Bristol. They built the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Theatre Royal and made a fortune from the slave trade.

They are the Merchant Venturers and Inside Out has secured unprecedented access to find out what goes on behind the secretive society's closed doors.

In an impressive mansion overlooking Bristol's Downs, about 60 of Bristol's richest, most powerful men are sitting down to a very posh lunch.

They are company directors, lawyers and landowners.

They are white, white-haired and well educated. Only two of them are women.

"They are an extremely powerful and wealthy group of people who exert an enormous amount of influence over the city."

Rich Cookson

They are members of Bristol's most exclusive club.

The Merchants are powerful and private and Rich Cookson, investigative journalist, is deeply suspicious of them.

"My main problem with the Merchant Venturers is that they are an extremely powerful and wealthy group of people who exert an enormous amount of influence over the city," he says.

"They simply refuse to tell us who they are and what they do."

Money equals power

The Merchants have been pulling strings in Bristol for 800 years.

For three and a half centuries they controlled all shipping in Bristol at a time when the city was one of the most important trading ports in the country.

They took part in the slave trade and amassed huge wealth.

Merchant Venturers had a hand in most of Bristol's landmark buildings and ventures - such as the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Theatre Royal and the city's latest landmark development, the at-Bristol complex.

But the Merchants insist their main business today is giving their money away, and they've got lots of it - more than £100 million in their various trust funds.

They've recently built a £15 million retirement complex in north Bristol and they're putting £2 million into a new city academy, a replacement for a crumbling secondary school in Withywood in south Bristol.

Until now most of the Merchants support for education has gone to two private schools - the Colston schools.

A helping hand

Denis Burn, a 51-year-old management consultant, is the latest Master of the Society of Merchant Venturers. He says:

"We are an organisation that nowadays is in fact purely focused on trying to help the prosperity and well-being of Bristol.

"To boil it down to what do we do: we help run trusts, we help run charities, we help provide trustees and governors for schools and so forth."

But Rich Cookson - the investigative journalist who's been dogging the Merchants for years - remains sceptical.

"It's a very potent brew," he says.

"You've got all these wealthy powerful businessmen getting together.

"They could be deciding on education policy for Bristol, they could be carving up business contracts between them.

"Now I haven't uncovered any evidence that's the case … but we simply have to take their word for it."

But there are signs that the Society is tiring of the criticism from outside and, rather than bolting the doors even more firmly, is preparing to engage its critics.

Behind closed doors

Exclusive web interview

Watch parts three and four of an extended interview with Master Merchant Denis Burn

"Do you understand why people may be suspicious?"

"Is it elitist?"

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The Master invites Inside Out's Tessa Dunlop to Merchants Hall and perhaps most surprisingly of all, he agrees to meet his chief critic - journalist Rich Cookson.

Stepping inside the palatial mansion for the first time, Rich wants to know why there are no Merchants from the black community or any other ethnic minorities.

"We're not going to go and have a token person," insists Denis.

"We're going to have someone who is high-achieving in their own walk of life in Bristol and I see absolutely no doubt that will happen. We're changing, but slowly."

Denis tries to dispel the fears that a cabal of wealthy people is scheming and making secret plans in a smoke-filled room.

"That's just not happening. In fact I think it's fantastic for Bristol that you get so many people who are prepared to put time into good activities."

By engaging its critics and allowing the society's activities to become more transparent, Denis and the Merchants are hoping to dispel any doubt and suspicion that have surrounded the society in the past.