Caricature published in Vanity Fair in 1885

Tom Nickalls (1828–1899) was a stockjobber on the stock exchange and one of the founding members of London Rowing Club. He was known as the "king of the American railroad market" [1][2] after making his fortune in American railway shares.

Biography

Nickalls was born on 8 September 1828, the son of Patteson Nickalls (1798–1869) and Arabella née Chalk (1799–1893) and brother of Patteson Nickalls he married Emily Quihampton. As a boy he was sent to America to work for an uncle who had a livery stables on DEarborn Street in Chicago, where he gained first-hand knowledge of the surrounding terrain and an understanding of which routes would be of strategic importance for developing railways – information which proved invaluable when he returned to England work as a jobber on the London Stock Exchange. His later successes gained him the soubriquet "The Erie King",[3] following his profitable speculation in shares of the Erie Railroad during the Erie War.

A keen sportsman and for many years a Master of the Surrey Stag Hounds,[4][5] Tom Nickalls had a hunting lodge at Skalstugan in Sweden. In 1893, he sent four pairs of Norwegian skis [6] as a present to his daughter Florence and son in law William Adolf Baillie Grohman who lived in the Austrian Tyrol – one of the earliest recorded uses of skis in Austria.

Tom Nickalls died on 10 May 1899 in Surrey, United Kingdom.

References

  1. ↑ "Tom Nickalls Dies in England". New York Times. May 12, 1899. Retrieved 2011-03-24. Tom Nickalls, father of the famous scullers, Guy and Vivian Nickalls, died to-day at Pattison Court, at the age of seventy-two. When a boy Mr. Nickalls ...
  2. ↑ "Tom Nickalls Dead". Daily Mail and Empire. May 12, 1899. Retrieved 2011-03-24. Nickalls, father of the famous scullers, Guy and Vivian Nickalls, died to-day at court, Redhill, at the age of 72 years. When a boy, Mr. Nickalls ...
  3. ↑ Duguid, Charles (1901). The story of the Stock Exchange. Its History and Position. Grant Richards. p. 250.
  4. ↑ "Thomas ('Tom') Nickalls (Men of the Day. No. 344.) by 'PAT', (F. Goedecker?) chromolithograph, published in Vanity Fair), 21 November 1885 (NPG D44253".
  5. ↑ "Surrey Stag Hounds Hunt 1893–1931: Surrey History Centre G70/64, National Record Archives, NRA 107063".
  6. ↑ Watkins, Olga (1937). "The first Skis in the Tyrol". The Field. London (November): 1274–1276.
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