Esther Ricardo

14. Esther, b. 17 Feb. 1789. She married in 1818 William Arthur Wilkinson (1796–1865), nephew of David Ricardo’s wife. Ricardo, writing to Mill, deplored the disparity of age between them, but spoke of him as ‘a great favorite with all our family’.2 Wilkinson was on the Stock Exchange as Ricardo’s clerk from 1811 to 1816 and as a member from 1817 to 1865. He was a railway director, M.P. for Lambeth, 1852–1857, and a member of the Political Economy Club, 1857–1865. At his death he left effects valued at £35,000. Esther died in childbirth on 10 April 1823 at Hackney, leaving four children, the eldest of whom was only three years old. Two of her sons became members of the Stock Exchange: William Ernest from 1845 to 1859 and Conrad from 1847 to 1914. The eldest son, Horace, was father of Canon Horace Ricardo Wilkinson, the present owner of the Ricardo letters described below, p. 109 ff. (For W. A. Wilkinson’s second marriage see above, sub Rachel).