Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Paul Reuter
Paul Julius Reuter (born Israel Beer Josaphat; 21 July 1816 – 25 February 1899), later ennobled as Freiherr von Reuter (Baron von Reuter), was a German-born British entrepreneur who was a pioneer of telegraphy and news reporting. He was a reporter, media owner, and the founder of the Reuters news agency, which became part of the Thomson Reuters conglomerate in 2008.
Reuter was born in a Jewish family as Israel Beer Josaphat in Kassel, Electorate of Hesse (now part of the Federal Republic of Germany). His father, Samuel Levi Josaphat, was a rabbi. His mother was Betty Sanders. In Göttingen, Reuter met Carl Friedrich Gauss, who was experimenting with the transmission of electrical signals via wire.
On 16 November 1845, he converted to Christianity in a ceremony at St. George's German Lutheran Chapel in London, and changed his name to Paul Julius Reuter. One week later, in the same chapel, he married Ida Maria Elizabeth Clementine Magnus of Berlin, daughter of a German banker.
A former bank clerk, in 1847 he founded Reuter and Stargardt, a Berlin book-publishing firm, with Joseph Abraham Stargardt. The distribution of radical pamphlets by the firm at the beginning of the 1848 Revolution may have focused official scrutiny on Reuter. Later that year, he left for Paris and worked in Charles-Louis Havas' news agency, Agence Havas, the future Agence France Presse.
As electrical telegraphy evolved, Reuter founded his own news agency in Aachen. Until the entire distance was connected by telegraph, messages were transferred on the leg between Brussels and Aachen using homing pigeons, completing the link to Berlin and Paris. Speedier than the post train, pigeons gave Reuter faster access to financial news from the Paris stock exchange. Eventually the telegraph link was completed and the pigeons were no longer necessary.
A telegraph line was being laid between Britain and continental Europe, so Reuter moved to London, renting an office near the Stock Exchange. In 1863, he privately erected a telegraph link to Crookhaven, the farthest south-western point of Ireland. On nearing Crookhaven, ships from the U.S. threw canisters containing news into the sea. These were retrieved by Reuters and telegraphed directly to London, arriving long before the ships reached Cork.
On 17 March 1857, Reuter was naturalised as a British subject. On 7 September 1871, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha granted him the noble title of Freiherr (baron). In November 1891, Queen Victoria granted him and his male-line successors the right to use that German title (listed as Baron von Reuter) in Britain.
In 1872, Nasir al-Din Shah, the Shah of Iran, signed a surprisingly lopsided concession agreement with Reuter. George Curzon wrote that:
Hub AI
Paul Reuter AI simulator
(@Paul Reuter_simulator)
Paul Reuter
Paul Julius Reuter (born Israel Beer Josaphat; 21 July 1816 – 25 February 1899), later ennobled as Freiherr von Reuter (Baron von Reuter), was a German-born British entrepreneur who was a pioneer of telegraphy and news reporting. He was a reporter, media owner, and the founder of the Reuters news agency, which became part of the Thomson Reuters conglomerate in 2008.
Reuter was born in a Jewish family as Israel Beer Josaphat in Kassel, Electorate of Hesse (now part of the Federal Republic of Germany). His father, Samuel Levi Josaphat, was a rabbi. His mother was Betty Sanders. In Göttingen, Reuter met Carl Friedrich Gauss, who was experimenting with the transmission of electrical signals via wire.
On 16 November 1845, he converted to Christianity in a ceremony at St. George's German Lutheran Chapel in London, and changed his name to Paul Julius Reuter. One week later, in the same chapel, he married Ida Maria Elizabeth Clementine Magnus of Berlin, daughter of a German banker.
A former bank clerk, in 1847 he founded Reuter and Stargardt, a Berlin book-publishing firm, with Joseph Abraham Stargardt. The distribution of radical pamphlets by the firm at the beginning of the 1848 Revolution may have focused official scrutiny on Reuter. Later that year, he left for Paris and worked in Charles-Louis Havas' news agency, Agence Havas, the future Agence France Presse.
As electrical telegraphy evolved, Reuter founded his own news agency in Aachen. Until the entire distance was connected by telegraph, messages were transferred on the leg between Brussels and Aachen using homing pigeons, completing the link to Berlin and Paris. Speedier than the post train, pigeons gave Reuter faster access to financial news from the Paris stock exchange. Eventually the telegraph link was completed and the pigeons were no longer necessary.
A telegraph line was being laid between Britain and continental Europe, so Reuter moved to London, renting an office near the Stock Exchange. In 1863, he privately erected a telegraph link to Crookhaven, the farthest south-western point of Ireland. On nearing Crookhaven, ships from the U.S. threw canisters containing news into the sea. These were retrieved by Reuters and telegraphed directly to London, arriving long before the ships reached Cork.
On 17 March 1857, Reuter was naturalised as a British subject. On 7 September 1871, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha granted him the noble title of Freiherr (baron). In November 1891, Queen Victoria granted him and his male-line successors the right to use that German title (listed as Baron von Reuter) in Britain.
In 1872, Nasir al-Din Shah, the Shah of Iran, signed a surprisingly lopsided concession agreement with Reuter. George Curzon wrote that: