John Lewis Ricardo (1812 – 2 August 1862) was a British businessman and politician.
He was the son of Jacob Ricardo and nephew of the economist
David Ricardo
David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a ...
. In 1841 he married Catherine Duff (c.1820 – 1869), the daughter of General
Sir Alexander Duff and sister of
James Duff, 5th Earl Fife
James Duff, 5th Earl Fife, (6 July 1814 – 7 August 1879) was a Scottish nobleman.
Early life
Duff was the son of Sir Alexander Duff, younger brother of James Duff, 4th Earl Fife, and Anne Stein, the daughter of James Stein of Kilbagie and K ...
. They had one son, Alexander Louis (1843–1871), the first husband of
Florence Bravo.
In 1841 he was elected Member of Parliament for
Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...
as a
Liberal, serving until his death. He was active in the repeal of the
Navigation Acts in 1849.
Businessman
Ricardo was Chairman of the
North Staffordshire Railway
The North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) was a British railway company formed in 1845 to promote a number of lines in the Staffordshire Potteries and surrounding areas in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Shropshire.
The company was bas ...
from 1846 until his death. In 1846, he and
William Fothergill Cooke
Sir William Fothergill Cooke (4 May 1806 – 25 June 1879) was an English inventor. He was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837. Together with John Ricardo he f ...
founded the
Electric Telegraph Company
The Electric Telegraph Company (ETC) was a British telegraph company founded in 1846 by William Fothergill Cooke and John Ricardo. It was the world's first public telegraph company. The equipment used was the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, ...
, the world's first public
telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
company, and Ricardo served as chairman until its merger with the International Telegraph Company in 1856. He was also a director of
London and Westminster Bank.
Ricardo was a leader of a group of businessmen who, in 1845, purchased the patents for the electric telegraph designed by
Cooke and
Wheatstone. Ricardo was Electric Telegraph's largest shareholder, and its executive chairman, for its first 12 years. His goal was to build a network that would distribute breaking financial news to his own newsrooms adjacent to all British stock exchanges—an information monopoly that would be valuable to speculators and investors. However, when the established telegraph companies formed monopolistic cartels and raised prices to newspapers, Ricardo secretly switched sides and campaigned for their nationalization.
[Roger Neil Barton, "The birth of telegraphic news in Britain," ''Media History'' (2010) 16#4, pp. 379–406]
Publications
* ''The anatomy of the Navigation Acts'',
Charles Gilpin, London (1847)
References
Further reading
* Barton, Roger Neil. "The birth of telegraphic news in Britain," ''Media History'' (2010) 16#4, pp 379–406
* Fetter, Frank Whitson. "The Influence of Economists in Parliament on British Legislation from Ricardo to John Stuart Mill", ''The Journal of Political Economy'', 83 no.5 (1975) 1051–1064.
* Mather, Francis C. "The railways, the electric telegraph and public order during the Chartist period, 1837–48." ''History'' 38.132 (1953): 40–53.
* Obituary,
The Gentleman's Magazine
''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term '' magazine'' (from the French ''magazine' ...
(Oct. 1862) pp. 496–97.
External links
*
John Lewis Ricardoat ThePeerage.com
at ThePotteries.org
The Ricardo Albumat RicardoPhotoAlbum.com
1812 births
1862 deaths
Politicians from Staffordshire
British Jews
Jewish British politicians
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1841–1847
UK MPs 1847–1852
UK MPs 1857–1859
UK MPs 1859–1865
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