Paul Julius Reuter, the son of Samuel Levi Josaphat, a rabbi, and Betty Sanders, was born in Kassell, Germany, on 21st 1816. As a young man he met Carl Friedrich Gauss who experimented with the transmission of electrical signals via wire.

On 16th November 1845 he married Ida Maria Elizabeth Clementine Magnus in Berlin. After the failure of the failed 1848 Revolution he moved to Paris where he worked for the Charles-Louis Havas' news agency. Later he established the Reuters News Agency which transferred messages between Brussels and Aachen using carrier pigeons as they were much faster than the post train.

In 1851 he moved the headquarters of the Reuters News Agency to London. This included setting up an office at the London Stock Exchange.

Paul Julius von Reuter died in Nice, France on 25th February, 1899.