Paul Julius 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 and founder of the Reuters news agency which still bears his name and is now part of the Thomson Reuters conglomerate in 2008.
Paul Julius Reuter was born in Kassel, Electorate of Hesse (now part of the Federal Republic of Germany) of Jewish parentage and became a Christian in 1844.
His father, Samuel Levi Josaphat, was a rabbi and his mother was Betty Sanders.
When Israel Beer turned thirteen, he was sent to his uncle in Göttingen, a university city in Lower Saxony, where he was trained as a clerk in a local banking house.
While studying at Goettingen University (founded in 1734 and recognized as the oldest university in Lower Saxony) he met the eminent mathematician and physicist, Carl Friedrich Gauss who was experimenting with electro-telegraphy (point-to-point text messaging systems) that was to become important in news dissemination received by news audiences.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (30 April 1777 – 23 February 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer, geodesist and physicist who is among history's most influential mathematicians and has been referred to as the "Prince of Mathematicians".
He is said to have claimed: "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and number theory is the queen of mathematics."
Gauss was director of the Göttingen Observatory and professor for astronomy from 1807 until his death in 1855.
He invented an early type of magnetometer that measures the direction and strength of a magnetic field.
With Wilhelm Eduard Weber (24 October 1804 – 23 June 1891), they built one of the first electromagnetic telegraphs.
Wilhelm Weber became professor of physics at the University of Göttingen in 1831, at the age of twenty-seven on the recommendation of Carl Friedrich Gauss.
On November 16, 1845, after having settled in Berlin, Israel Beer converted to Christianity (Protestantism) in a ceremony at St. George's German Lutheran Chapel and changed his name to Paul Julius Reuter.
On November 23, 1845, Paul Julius Reuter married Ida Maria Elizabeth Clementine Magnus, daughter of Friedrich Freiherr von Martin Magnus (1796–1869), a German banker in Berlin.

Partnership

In 1847, Paul Julius Reuter formed a partnership with Joseph Stargardt (1822–1885) in Reuter and Stargardt, a Berlin bookshop and book-publishing firm assisted by his father-in-law's financial help..
In 1848, a year of revolution throughout Europe, Reuter aroused the hostility of the authorities with spreading political pamphlets and booklets and managed to escape to Paris where he found work at Charles-Louis Havas' news agency, Agence Havas, the future Agence France Presse where he began translating extracts from articles and commercial news and sending them to papers in Germany.
Joseph Stargardt then became the sole proprietor of Reuter & Stargardt and operated as "J. A. Stargardt" specializing on antiquarian and autographic bookselling.
In the early 1850s the store was regularly searched by the Prussian police regarding publications and posters.
1848
The European Revolutions of 1848 (also called the Spring of Nations) were a series of republican revolts against European monarchies, beginning in Sicily and spreading to France, Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire.
They helped to create greater freedom, the rising political and economic power of the middle classes and modern nationalism (identification and loyalty with one's own nation and culture).

Carrier-Pigeon Service

In 1850, Paul Julius Reuter set up a carrier-pigeon service for news and stock price information between Aachen (Germany) and Brussels using 45 trained birds to deliver messages strapped to a special lightweight case to the pigeon's leg.
Homing pigeons can fly 500 to 800 miles a day at speeds of more than 60 miles per hour over unfamiliar terrain or open water because they simply desire to fly home!
Cher Ami - The Hero Pigeon
A pigeon's unique homing ability has long played an invaluable role in war as military messengers - even if they sustain an injury a pigeon will continue on its journey home.
A wonderful example was Cher Ami in World War I.
Cher Ami (French for "dear friend") a male homing pigeon, was donated by the Britain for use by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in France during World War I and had been trained by American pigeoners.
On October 3, 1918, Major Charles White Whittlesey and more than 550 men were trapped behind enemy lines without food or ammunition during the Meuse-Argonne offensive. They were also receiving friendly fire from allied troops who did not know their location.
Cher Ami" was dispatched with a note, written on onion paper, in a canister on his right leg with the message: "We are along the road parallel [sic] to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heavens sake stop it".
As Cher Ami tried to fly back home, the Germans saw him rising out of the brush and was shot down.
The bird managed to take flight again arriving back at his loft at division headquarters 25 miles (40 km) to the rear in just 25 minutes.
Despite serious injuries, Cher Ami saved the lives of the 194 survivors and became the hero of the 77th Infantry Division.
He had been shot through the breast, blinded in one eye and had a leg hanging only by a tendon.
Army medics worked to save his life and when he recovered, the now, one-legged pigeon was immediately sent home to the United States, with General John J. Pershing seeing him off.
Overall, Cher Ami had 12 successful missions during World War I — a high success rate among homing pigeons.
Carrier pigeons were able to give Paul Julius Reuter faster access to financial news from the Paris stock exchange delivering stock market prices.
Speed has been at the heart of Reuters News.

Move to England

In 1851, Paul Julius Reuter was accused of distributing political literature and fled to England, where he founded his Telegraphic Office near the London stock exchange beginning with commercial telegrams.
With daily newspapers flourishing, he persuaded several publishers to subscribe to his service covering topics like commercial news, serving banks, brokerage houses and business firms.
On 17 March 1857, Paul Julius Reuter was naturalised as a British subject.
Telegraphy
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 and were retrieved by Reuters and telegraphed directly to London, arriving long before the ships reached Cork.
Reuter's became famous for reporting on important topics first many times.
For example, it was the first in Europe to report Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865 to the European public.
In 1859, he transmitted to London the text of a speech by Napoleon III foreshadowing the Austro-French Piedmontese war in Italy.
Napoleon III oversaw the modernization of the French economy, he expanded the French colonial empire, made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and personally engaged in two wars - his reign would ultimately end on the battlefield.
Reuter's continuing successes brought Paul Julius Reuter to the attention of the highest levels of government.
On 7 September 1871, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha granted him the noble title of Freiherr (baron) and later was given the privileges of this rank in England.
In 1861, Reuter was presented at the Court of Queen Victoria by Prime Minister Lord Palmerston.
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.

Expansion

With his services rapidly expanding throughout Europe, Paul Julius Reuter laid his own telegraph cables across the North Sea to reach Germany and France.
The spread of undersea cables helped Reuter extend his service even further to other continents.
In 1865, Reuter opened the first news agency office in Alexandria, Egypt.
By 1872 the agency reached the Far East.
In 1874 it expanded into South America.
In 1878, Reuter retired as managing director and was replaced by his eldest son, Herbert de Reuter.
In 1883, Reuter's began transmitting messages electrically to London newspapers using a column printer — early version of a "news wire" which would become a common feature in newsrooms worldwide.
Reuter's two rival competitors were the Havas Agency of France and Wolff of Germany who agreed on a geographic division of territory.
The three agencies held a virtual monopoly on world press services for many years.

Paul Julius Reuter Legacy

Paul Julius Reuter died on February 25, 1899, at his mansion, the Villa Reuter, in Nice, France.
His company continued to build after his death to become one of the world's largest news agencies in the world.
Reuter was portrayed by Edward G. Robinson in the Warner Bros. biographical film A Dispatch from Reuters (1941) which can be viewed on You Tube.
On February 25, 1999, the Reuters News Agency commemorated the 100th anniversary of the death of its founder by launching a university award (the Paul Julius Reuter Innovation Award) in Germany.

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