Anon - circle of Joseph Highmore - Richard Puller

Richard Puller (1747–1826) was a prominent English

merchant banker A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodi ...

in London. He has sometimes been identified as the pseudonymous economic writer

Piercy Ravenstone Piercy Ravenstone was a pseudonym used by a nineteenth-century political economist whose work led him to being variously described as a socialist, a tory and as an institutionalist. His contribution was noted by David Ricardo and Karl Marx and br ...

, considered a precursor of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

; but scholarly sources generally now follow the suggestion of

Piero Sraffa Piero Sraffa (5 August 1898 – 3 September 1983) was an influential Italian economist who served as lecturer of economics at the University of Cambridge. His book ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'' is taken as founding the neo ...

that Ravenstone was Richard Puller the younger (1789–1831), his son.

Life

He was the son of Christopher Puller (died 1789), also a prominent London merchant banker. His father was a director of the Bank of England, while he was a director of the

South Sea Company The South Sea Company (officially The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the South Seas and other parts of America, and for the encouragement of the Fishery) was a British joint-stock company founded in Ja ...

; Richard and Charles Puller, of 10 Broadstreet Buildings, were the London bankers of

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

during the 1780s; Adams refers also to the firm as Conde & Puller. This was also the period of the

Fourth Anglo-Dutch War The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War ( nl, Vierde Engels-Nederlandse Oorlog; 1780–1784) was a conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic. The war, contemporary with the War of American Independence (1775-1783), broke out ove ...

, and Richard Puller acted as an agent in a case concerning a captured Dutch ship. In later life Puller resided at Painswick Court in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. He died there, on 5 December 1826.

Family

Puller married Selina Wall, daughter of Thomas Wall of

Albury Park Albury Park is a country park and Grade II* listed historic country house (Albury Park Mansion) in Surrey, England. It covers over ; within this area is the old village of Albury, which consists of three or four houses and a church. The River T ...

, Surrey. (Wall is so called. The Wall family of Albury Park were Charles Wall of

Barings Bank Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London, and one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member of ...

and his wife Francis, daughter of Sir Francis Baring; they were the parents of

Charles Baring Wall Charles Baring Wall (1795 – 14 October 1853) was at various times the Member of Parliament for Guildford, Wareham, Weymouth and Salisbury. Wall was initially a Conservative but shifted to the Whigs as an MP for Guildford. He then belonged to th ...

, the Member of Parliament. The house was bought in 1811 from Samuel Thornton, sold in 1819 to Henry Drummond. Charles Wall's parents were Thomas Wall (1721–1812) and Elizabeth Ellis.) The following were their children: *

Sir Christopher Puller ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only ...

(1774–1824) *Henry Puller (1782–1813), an officer in the Bengal Army. He died at Rangpur. *Richard Puller the younger (1789–1831). He is now the usual identification of the pseudonymous economic writer, Piercy Ravenstone. It has also been suggested that the elder Richard Puller might be Ravenstone, and this identification is made in the ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

''. *Harriet, who married

John Norman Pearson John Norman Pearson (1787–1865) of Tunbridge Wells and London was a prolific Victorian writer on religious subjects. Life Son of the surgeon John Pearson (1758–1826), born 7 December 1787, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. There ...

. *Charlotte Louisa *Selina Eliza, the third daughter, married John Cholmondeley, rector of

Brandiston Brandiston is a small village and civil parish near the centre of the county of Norfolk, England, about two miles south-east of the small market town of Reepham, five miles south-west of the larger town of Aylsham and 10 miles north-west of t ...

. He was a brother of Sir Montague Cholmeley, 1st Baronet.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puller, Richard 1747 births 1826 deaths English bankers English merchants