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.Foster, Sandys B. The Pedigrees Of Beakbane of Lancaster, Bragg of Netherend etc. London, 1890Website of Bragg, Stockdale, Hall & Co His original clients included the future British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli, Benjamin 'Letter to Mr Bragg, 1825', Benjamin Disraeli Letters 1860-1864, Volume VIII, London 1982
By the 1840s, he was in partnership with stockbroker George Stockdale and heavily involved in the boom in mining, railways and infrastructure projects for the British Empire.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) He was a notable figure in the City, from testifying as one of a dozen stockbrokers before the House of Lords commission during the Forged Exchequer Bills Scandal of the 1840s,Great Britain Parliament, House of Lords 'John Bragg sworn and testify' Reports from Commissioners Volume 22, p.167. (London, 1842) to part funding Crown Agents loans to the colony of Mauritius to build its railway.Sundarland, David 'Purchasers of those loans etc. Managing the British Empire: The Crown Agents, 1833-1914. (London, 2013)
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.Mrs John Bragg National Portrait Gallery
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.Paul Frecker Fine Photographs Miss Marry Bragg'Deaths' The London Illustrated News, November 7, 1868
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.Business News 'Stockbroking merger' The Times, October 17 1975 Bragg's venture thus continued as "Fiske & Co, also incorporating Bragg, Stockdale, Hall & Co.""A bit of a mouthful merger", Evening Standard, 30 October 1975
In 2022, following the acquisition of Charles Stanley - which was founded in 1792 and took 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.Bragg, Stockdale, Hall & Co website References