Thomas de la Rue

Who is Thomas de la Rue?

Thomas de la Rue was born on 24 March 1793 at Le Bourg in the parish of Forest, Guernsey, the seventh of nine children of Eleazar de la Rue and Rachel Allez. He was apprenticed to master-printer Joseph Antoine Chevalier in St Peter Port from 1803, learning the trade that would define his life. As a young man he went into business with Tom Greenslade, launching the newspaper Le Publiciste; after the partnership broke down, he founded his own paper, Le Miroir Politique, first published in February 1813. In 1816 he left Guernsey for London, initially working in straw hat manufacture before turning back to his printing roots. In 1830, together with Samuel Cornish and William Rock, he founded a business as cardmakers, hot pressers and enamellers, which grew steadily under his direction into a major printing house specialising in fine work such as playing cards and, later, postage stamps and banknotes. That firm became Thomas De La Rue and Company, the ancestor of today's De La Rue plc, now the world's largest commercial security printer and banknote and passport manufacturer. He died on 7 June 1866. The Guernsey Post Office issued commemorative postage stamps honouring his life and achievements in 1971 and 1993, marking him as one of the island's most consequential figures in industry and print.

Sources: Thomas de la Rue — Wikipedia · Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, "De La Rue, Thomas" · History.gg, "Famed printer Thomas de la Rue born"