ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the first 21 years of his life, when he was a child in a London Sephardi household and, from the age of 13, a member of the Bevis Marks congregation. Given the scarcity of primary sources, the chapter adds something to the accounts available. First, it contends that we may learn something more about Ricardo’s formative years and his religious and moral education than Sraffa and other biographers felt able to do with the scant documents available. Second, it contends that Ricardo’s Sephardi background is essential to account for his moral and political commitments, particularly his ideas on toleration, and to understand the intellectual experiences he had and the motivations he acquired.
The chapter tries to perform a ‘thick’ reading of reticent utterances by Ricardo and other sources in the light of their co-text and context. The chapter interprets what they meant, whom they were addressing and what they wanted not to disclose to their audience. It conducts such thick reading by summarising first the problems with interpretation of sources on Ricardo’s biography, secondly illustrating the history of the London Sephardi community until Ricardo’s time, and finally reconstructing the context of Ricardo’s education.
