Richard Puller
Richard Puller was a prominent English merchant banker in London. He has sometimes been identified as the pseudonymous economic writer Piercy Ravenstone, considered a precursor of Karl Marx; but scholarly sources generally now follow the suggestion of Piero Sraffa that Ravenstone was Richard Puller the younger, his son.
Life
He was the son of Christopher Puller, also a prominent London merchant banker. His father was a director of the Bank of England, while he was a director of the South Sea Company;Richard and Charles Puller, of 10 Broadstreet Buildings, were the London bankers of John Adams during the 1780s; Adams refers also to the firm as Conde & Puller. This was also the period of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, and Richard Puller acted as an agent in a case concerning a captured Dutch ship.
In later life Puller resided at Painswick Court in Gloucestershire. He died there, on 5 December 1826.
Family
Puller married Selina Wall, daughter of Thomas Wall of Albury Park, Surrey. The following were their children:- Sir [Christopher Puller]
- Henry Puller, an officer in the Bengal Army. He died at Rangpur.
- Richard Puller the younger. He is now the usual identification of the pseudonymous economic writer, Piercy Ravenstone. It has also been suggested that the elder Richard Puller might be Ravenstone, and this identification is made in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- Harriet, who married John Norman Pearson.
- Charlotte Louisa
- Selina Eliza, the third daughter, married John Cholmondeley, rector of Brandiston. He was a brother of Sir Montague Cholmeley, 1st Baronet.