| Abstract: | In 1845 John Lewis Ricardo was among a group who bought the Cooke and Wheatstone British patents for the electric telegraph at a current cost of £10 million. Although many people have examined the history of the telegraph no one seems to have asked the question ‘Why?’ Ricardo was a Member of the Stock Exchange, financier and a leading politician campaigning against monopolies. This paper postulates that his prime objective, while the largest shareholder for the first three and executive Chairman of the Electric Telegraph Company for its first 12 years, was to build a network, obtain and then distribute financial intelligence to its own newsrooms, adjacent to all the Stock Exchanges in Britain. It was not an afterthought as has been widely assumed. Newspapers in the regions took advantage of this new media. When the telegraph companies later formed their own cartel/monopoly, and substantially boosted prices charged to newspapers, Ricardo changed sides and secretly campaigned for their nationalization. |
