Harry Marks (journalist)

[2] Marks attended University College School from 1864 to 1868, followed by a period at the Athénée Royal [fr] in Brussels, before travelling to the United States, aged 16, in 1871.

[3] After arriving in New Orleans, Marks first job was selling sewing machines, before talking his way into a position writing for newspapers in Texas on the grounds of (non-existent) previous journalistic experience.

This was his first foray into financial journalism, and there were widespread rumours that he had freely speculated in mining company shares, as well as more scandalous allegations involving seducing and defrauding the widow of one of his former business associates.

The Financial News was active at investigative reporting, exposing a number of fraudulent share schemes as well as playing a part in the corruption scandals that led to the downfall of the Metropolitan Board of Works in the late 1880s.

[10] His contemporary Frank Harris later summed Marks up as a man of "few scruples and many interests";[11] nowhere was this more clear than the way in which he exploited his paper's reputation for his own commercial schemes.

[14] Marks's first political venture was in 1889, when he stood as a "Moderate" for election to the newly formed London County Council, in the East Marylebone district.

[16] He stood down from the LCC to contest the 1892 general election, where he was the Conservative candidate for Bethnal Green North East, running against the Liberal-Labour incumbent, George Howell.