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posted ago by alltheleavesarebrown ago by alltheleavesarebrown +11 / -0

Reuter was born Israel Bear Josaphat. His father was a German rabbi.

Paul Julius Baron von Reuter (Kassel, 21 July 1816 – Nice, 25 February 1899) was a British journalist and media magnate, founder of Reuters press agency.

Reuter was born Israel Bear Josaphat. His father was a German rabbi. In Göttingen Reuter met Carl Friedrich Gauss who experimented with the transmission of electrical signals via wires.

Reuter moved to London on October 29, 1845; there he called himself Joseph Josephat, referring to his father’s first names. On November 16, he changed his name to Paul Julius Reuter. A week later, on November 23, he married Ida Maria Elizabeth Clementine Magnus. In 1848 he worked in Paris in the press office of Charles-Louis Havas, later Agence France Presse (AFP).

As telegraphy developed Reuter founded an institute in Aachen that sent messages between Brussels and Aachen by carrier pigeons. This service was the missing link in the connection between Berlin and Paris. The carrier pigeons were much faster than mail trains, so Reuter had all kinds of news on the Paris Stock Exchange faster. In 1851 the pigeons became superfluous due to a new telegraph connection.

In 1851 Reuter moved back to London where he set up an office at the London Stock Exchange. He founded Reuters, one of the most important financial press agencies in the world. On 17 March 1857 Reuter was naturalised as a British citizen.

On September 7, 1871, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha elevated Reuter to the rank of baron. Reuter died at Villa Reuter in Nice (France) and was buried in the family grave in London.

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