John Morgan Richards
John Morgan Richards (February 16, 1841
Richards was born in Aurora, Cayuga County, New York, the son of Dr James Richards, a Presbyterian minister of English descent, and Elizabeth Beals.[1]
A Boston resident in adulthood, he married Laura Hortense Arnold in 1863, and moved to London permanently in 1867, though retaining his American citizenship all his life.[2] The Richards attended the City Temple.
His best known business achievement was a major and successful marketing campaign from 1877 onward to popularise the cigarette in Britain.[2] This was achieved through "vigorous advertising and some ingenious and original methods of trade promotion" [2] such as offering chemists an incentive - he would pay for their tobacco trading license - if they supplied his cigarettes, Allen & Ginter's Virginia-made "Richmond Gems".[1] He also marketed the patent medicines Carter's Little Liver Pills and Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People.[3]
He was chairman of the American Society in London, and a member of the Reform Club.[2]
In 1903 he purchased Steephill Castle near Ventnor, Isle of Wight, where he lived for the remainder of his life.[4] He largely retired from business after the early death in 1906 of his daughter Pearl Craigie, who lived and worked part-time in her own villa near Steephill.
His Times obituary recalled him as "the pioneer of a doubtful benefit", though crediting him with having "helped greatly to promote trade relations between England and the United States".[2]
Publications
- With John Bull and Jonathan. Reminiscences of sixty years of an American's life in England and in the United States (pub. D. Appleton, New York, 1906) Internet Archive
- The life of John Oliver Hobbes: told in her correspondence with numerous friends (J. Murray, London, 1911, Internet Archive)
- Almost Fairyland - personal notes concerning the Isle of Wight (1914) - a privately circulated appreciation of the Isle of Wight. Available online: Almost Fairyland copy at Bodleian Library
References
- ^ a b c With John Bull and Jonathan
- ^ a b c d e Obituary, The Times, Monday, Aug 12, 1918
- ^ .George Fulford and Victorian Patent Medicine Men: Quack Mercenaries or Smilesian Entrepreneurs? (Lori Loeb, CBMH/BHCM, Volume 16: 1999, pp.125-45)
- ^ Steephill Castle, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, the residence of John Morgan Richards, Esq.; a handbook and a history (John B Marsh, 1907, Internet Archive
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