John Bragg (stockbroker)

John Bragg (July 8, 1796 – October 20, 1868) was an English stockbroker and financier.

Born in Whitehaven on the coastal edge of the Lake District in Cumbria to Joseph Bragg, Esq., "a gentleman" and his wife Elizabeth, née Skelton, and noted as a neighbour and friend of the Earl of Carlisle, he moved to London and was elected a member of the Stock Exchange in 1824. He founded his company Bragg & Co at No.6 Throgmorton Street, adjacent to the old London Stock Exchange at Capel Court at Nos.7-9, and later part of the Old Stock Exchange building.[1][2] His original clients included the future British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.[3]

By the mid-1840s, he was in partnership with stockbroker George Stockdale and heavily involved in the boom in mining, railways and infrastrusture projects for the British Empire. [4][2]

In 1852 he married Eleanor, daughter of Rev. Robert Otway Wilson, B.D., whose photograph by Camille Silvy is in the National Portrait Gallery and they had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Bragg, who went on to marry Percival Bowen in 1877 and have six children.[5]

John Bragg died peacefully in his home of No. 1 Porchester Gardens in the City of Westminster in London in 1868 worth £30,000, or roughly £30 million in today's money adjusted for average earnings.[6][7]

Following his death, in 1888 George Stockdale partnered with Frederic Hall, maintaining the founder's name in what was now Bragg, Stockdale, Hall & Co. In 1975 it merged with Fiske & Co, with senior partner Lord Michael Brudenell-Bruce, 8th Marquess of Ailesbury joining with Fiske senior partner Clive Fiske Harrison, Esq., who himself had been recruited out of the University of Cambridge to Panmure Gordon by Ian Cameron, father of another future British Prime Minister, David Cameron.[8] Bragg's venture thus continued as "Fiske & Co, also incorporating Bragg, Stockdale, Hall & Co.[9]

In 2022, following the acquisition of Charles Stanley - which was founded in 1792 and ook over Bragg's offices at No.6 in 1953 - by Raymond James, it inherited the title of oldest independent stockbroker in the City of London.[10]

References

  1. ^ Foster, Sandys B. The Pedigrees Of Beakbane of Lancaster, Bragg of Netherend etc. London, 1890
  2. ^ a b Website of Bragg, Stockdale, Hall & Co [1]
  3. ^ Disraeli, Benjamin 'Letter to Mr Bragg, 1825', Benjamin Disraeli Letters 1860-1864, Volume VIII, London 1982
  4. ^ Bank of England Bragg & George Stockdale joint account Bragg & Stockdale account ledger at the Bank of England, 1847 (Courtesy of the Bank of England Archive, C98/3230)
  5. ^ Mrs John Bragg National Portrait Gallery
  6. ^ Paul Frecker Fine Photographs Miss Marry Bragg
  7. ^ 'Deaths' The London Illustrated News, November 7, 1868
  8. ^ Business News 'Stockbroking merger' The Times, October 17 1975
  9. ^ "A bit of a mouthful merger", Evening Standard, 30 October 1975
  10. ^ Bragg, Stockdale, Hall & Co website
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