Reuters was set up in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter, a German-born immigrant. He opened an office in the City of London which transmitted stock market quotations between London and Paris via the new Calais-Dover cable. Two years earlier he had used pigeons to fly stock prices between Aachen and Brussels.
Reuters, as the agency soon became known, eventually extended its service to the whole British press as well as to other European countries. It also expanded to include general and economic news from across the world. Its reputation rapidly gained ground thanks to a series of major scoops.
The one Reuters journalists love to cite most was in 1865 when the company was first in Europe with news of US President Lincoln's assassination. Advances in overland telegraphs and undersea cables allowed the news wire to expand into the far east in 1872 and South America in 1874. In 1883 Reuters started transmitting messages electrically to London newspapers and in 1923 it pioneered the use of radio to transmit news internationally.
The firm has always been fiercely independent and has clear principles for all its reporters across text and television on objective reporting. However, during both world wars, it came under pressure from the British government to serve national interests. In 1941 Reuters deflected the pressure by restructuring itself as a private company.
The new owners, the British national and regional press, formed the Reuters Trust, with independent trustees who must safeguard the group's independence and neutrality. The group listed in 1984 and has not always had an easy time on the public markets. Its share price shot up during the dotcom boom but fell back sharply along with the fortunes of investment banks after 2001.
Lean times in the City and on Wall Street forced many traders to pick between their Reuters screen and Bloomberg's rival service. Still, in the last few year chief executive Tom Glocer has pushed through a turnaround strategy and the share price has gradually recovered, not least thanks to renewed boom times in banking. Katie Allen