Paul Reuter

From New World Encyclopedia


Paul Reuter aged 53 years (1869) by Rudolf Lehmann

Paul Julius Baron von Reuter (July 21, 1816 - February 25, 1899) was a German-born British entrepreneur and media owner, the founder of Reuters news agency.

Life

Paul Julius Reuter was born on July 21, 1816 in Kassel, Germany to a Jewish family, his father being a rabbi. His birthname was Israel Beer Josaphat.

The young Josaphat first worked in his uncle's bank in Göttingen. There, he met Carl Friedrich Gauss, the physicist who pioneered the application of mathematical theory to electricity and magnetism. At that time, Gauss was experimenting with the transmission of electrical signals via wire, which stimulated Josaphat's interest in telegraphy.

On October 29, 1845, he moved to London calling himself Joseph Josaphat. He quickly converted to Christianity and on November 16 was baptized Paul Julius Reuter. One week later, on November 23, he married Ida Maria Elizabeth Clementine Magnus.[1] Their children included a son, Herbert, who took over his father's news agency on his retirement but later committed suicide, shooting himself on April 18, 1915.[1] Their daughter, Clementine Maria, married Count Otto Stenbock, and after his death, Sir Herbert Chermside, a British military officer and governor of Queensland, Australia.[2]

Reuter returned to Germany, where in 1847 he became a partner in a bookstore and publishing company, Reuter & Stargardt, in Berlin. After publishing political pamphlets, with the failed Revolution of 1848, he fled from Germany to Paris. There he tried to establish a news agency but it failed in a few months. He then worked there in Charles-Louis Havas' news agency, the future Agence France Presse.

By 1850, Reuter was back in Germany where he founded what became the world-renowned financial news agency bearing his name, Reuters. In 1851, he moved back to London and set up an office near the London Stock Exchange.

Statue of Paul Reuter in the City of London

On March 17, 1857, Reuter was naturalized as a British subject. On September 7, 1871, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha conferred the rank of baron on him, whereafter he became known as Paul Julius von Reuter or Paul Julius de Reuter. Later, he received the same rank in England.

Reuter retired from the news agency in 1878, handing control over to his son, Herbert, although he continued to be involved for many years. He moved to Nice, France, preferring the warmer climate, and died there in "Villa Reuter." His body was taken back to London and buried in the family vault at West Norwood Cemetery.

Work

Following his introduction to telegraphy through his acquaintance with Carl Friedrich Gauss, Reuter embarked on a career in the media. Despite some initial failures, his entrepreurial spirit led him to success when he founded the news agency that became one of the major such agencies in the world, Reuters.

Reuters Data Centre, London.

After fleeing from Germany to Paris in 1848, Reuter worked there in Charles-Louis Havas' news agency, the future Agence France Presse. Reuter noticed that with the electric telegraph news no longer required days or weeks to travel long distances. In 1850, the 34-year-old Reuter was based in Aachen, Germany, close to the Dutch and Belgian border, and began using the newly opened Berlin–Aachen telegraph line to send news to Berlin. However, there was a 76-mile gap in the line between Aachen and Brussels. Reuter spotted the opportunity to speed up news between Brussels and Berlin and founded the Reuters News Agency, which transferring messages between Brussels and Aachen using carrier pigeons. The carrier pigeons were much faster than the post train, giving Reuter faster access to stock news from the Paris stock exchange. In 1851, the carrier pigeons were superseded by a direct telegraph link.[3]

In 1851, Reuter moved back to London and set up his "Submarine Telegraph" office in October, 1851 just before the opening of the underwater telegraph cable under the English Channel. He agreed to a contract with the London Stock Exchange to provide stock prices from the continental exchanges in return for access to the London prices, which he supplied to Paris brokers. From that foundation Reuter obtained subscriptions from several British newspapers, including The Times.

Reuters offices opened all over Europe, following Reuter's motto "Follow the cable."[4]

In 1865, Reuter's private firm was restructured and became a limited company called Reuter's Telegram Company. Reuter's agency built a reputation in Europe for being the first to report scoops from abroad, such as the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. A telegraph link was established between Britain and the European continent through the English Channel. This link was extended to the south-western shore of Ireland, at Cork in 1863. There ships coming from America threw canisters containing news into the sea. The news was telegraphed to London, arriving before the ships.

In 1883, Reuter wrote a memo that guided Reuters correspondents for over a century, until Reuters merged with the Thomson Group in 2008. In this memo, which set the standard for concise and timely reporting, Reuter requested them to report on: fires, explosions, floods, inundations, railway accidents, destructive storms, earthquakes, shipwrecks attended with loss of life, accidents to war vessels and to mail steamers, street riots of a grave character, disturbances arising from strikes, duels between, and suicides of persons of note, social or political, and murders of a sensational or atrocious character. It is requested that the bare facts be first telegraphed with the utmost promptitude, and as soon as possible afterwards a descriptive account, proportionate to the gravity of the incident. Care should, of course, be taken to follow the matter up.[5]

Legacy

The Reuters company continued to build on the foundation established by Reuter.

Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world along with the AP, Agence France-Presse, and UPI. Reuters supplies images, video, and text to a number of news outlets around the world. Their clients include newspapers, television stations, radio stations, corporations, and bloggers. Their material is used extensively around the world by both major and minor news outlets through an extensive electronic network, in which Reuters was a pioneer.

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 K. M. Shrivastava, News Agencies: From Pigeon to Internet (New Dawn Press, 2007, ISBN 1932705678)
  2. Paul D. Wilson, Chermside, Sir Herbert Charles (1850 - 1929) Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7 631-632 (Melbourne University Press, 1979). Retrieved August 26, 2008.
  3. Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet (Walker & Company, 2007, ISBN 0802716040)
  4. Company History Thomson Reuters. Retrieved August 26, 2008.
  5. James Harding, Has Reuters chosen the right way ahead? The Times, May 16, 2007. Retrieved September 2, 2008.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Shrivastava, K. M. News Agencies: From Pigeon to Internet. New Dawn Press, 2007. ISBN 1932705678
  • Read, Donald. The Power of News: The History of Reuters 1849-1989. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0198217765
  • Read, Donald. Power of News: The History of Reuters. Diane Pub Co, 2nd edition, 1999. ISBN 0756762219
  • Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers. Walker & Company, 2007. ISBN 0802716040

External links

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