Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Samuelson, Bernhard
SAMUELSON, Sir BERNHARD, first baronet (1820–1905), ironmaster and promoter of technical education, born at Hamburg, where his mother was on a visit, on 22 Nov. 1820, was eldest of the six sons of Samuel Henry Samuelson (1789–1863), merchant, by his wife Sarah Hertz (d. 1875). Bernhard's grandfather, Henry Samuelson (1764-1813), was a merchant of London. In his infancy his father settled at Hull. Educated at a private school at Skirlaugh, Yorkshire, he showed mathematical aptitude, but he left at fourteen to enter his father's office. At home he developed a love of music and a command of modern languages. He was soon apprenticed to Rudolph Zwilchenhart & Co., a Swiss firm of merchants, at Liverpool. There he spent six years. In 1837 he was sent to Warrington by his masters to purchase locomotive engines for export to Prussia. The experience led him to seek expert knowledge of engineering, and it suggested to him the possibility of expanding greatly the business of exporting English machinery to the Continent. In 1842 he was made manager of the export business of Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Co., engineers, of Manchester. In this capacity he was much abroad, but owing to the railway boom at home in 1845, the firm gave up the continental trade. Next year Samuelson went to Tours and established railway works of his own, which he carried on with success till the revolution of 1848 drove him back to England.
In 1848 Samuelson purchased a small factory of agricultural implements at Banbury, which the death of the founder, James Gardner, brought into the market. Samuelson developed the industry with rare energy, and the works, which in 1872 produced no less than 8000 reaping-machines, rapidly became one of the largest of its kind. A branch was established at Orleans. The business, which was turned into a limited liability company in 1887, helped to convert Banbury from an agricultural town into an industrial centre. Meanwhile Samuelson in 1853 undertook a different sort of venture elsewhere. At the Cleveland Agricultural Show he met John Vaughan, who had discovered in 1851 the seam of Cleveland ironstone, and now convinced Samuelson of the certain future of the Cleveland iron trade. Samuel son erected blast-furnaces at South Bank, near Middlesbrough, within a mile of the works of Bolckow & Vaughan at Eston. These he worked until 1863, when they were sold, and more extensive premises were built in the neighbourhood of Newport. Samuelson, whose interest in practical applications of science grew keen, studied for himself the construction of blast-furnaces and resolved to enlarge their cubical capacity at the expense of their height. By 1870 eight furnaces were at work, most of them of greater capacity than any others in the district. In 1872 between 2500 and 3000 tons of pig-iron were produced weekly. In 1871 a description of the Newport ironworks which he presented to the Institution of Civil Engineers won him a Telford medal.
In 1887 the iron-working firm of Sir B. Samuelson & Co., Ltd., was formed with a nominal capital of 275,000^. Sir Bemhard was chairman of the company until 1895, when he handed over the chairmanship to his second son, Francis. The blast furnaces were in 1905 producing about 300,000 tons of pig iron annually, and the by-products from the coke ovens started in 1896 averaged about 270,000 tons of coke, 12,000 tons of tar, 3500 of sulphate of ammonia, and 150,000 gallons of crude naphtha.
An important extension of Samuelson's commercial energies took place in July 1870. He then built the Britannia iron-works at Middlesbrough, his third manufacturing enterprise (which subsequently became part of the property of Messrs. Doman Long & Co.). The site was twenty acres of marsh land, which was only adaptable to its purpose after being covered with slag. In the Britannia works there was installed the largest plant at that date put into operation at one time, and their output of iron, tar, and by-products was soon gigantic. One of Samuelson's endeavours which bore tribute to his mechanical ambition came to nothing. He was anxious to make steel from Cleveland ore — an effort in which no success had yet been achieved. He learned on the Continent of the Siemens-Martin process, and now spent some 300,000l. in experimenting with it. In 1869 he leased for the purpose the North Yorkshire ironworks at South Stockton ; but the attempt proved unsuccessful, though the trial taught some useful lessons to iron-masters.
Samuelson, who was a considerate employer of labour, took part in developing Middlesbrough and the Cleveland district, identifying himself with local institutions and effort. But his home was at Banbury, and he was prominent there in publio affairs. Seeking a parliamentary career, he represented the place and district in parliament for more than thirty years. He was a zealous upholder of liberal principles, was loyal to his party, and a staunch supporter of Gladstone. He was first elected for Banbury by a majority of one vote in Feb. 1859, but he was defeated at the general election two months later. In 1865 however he was again elected, and an allegation that he was not of English birth and therefore ineligible was examined and confuted by a committee of the House of Commons. He retained the seat in 1868, 1874, and 1880. In 1885, when the borough was merged in the North Oxfordshire division, he was returned for that constituency, and he sat for it until 1895, when he retired and was made a privy councillor. Although he supported home rule, he lost sympathy with the ultra-radical sentiment which increased in the party during his last years. Through life Samuelson cherished free-trade convictions, yet in his last years he reached the conclusion that 'a departure from free trade' was ’admissible with a view to widening the area of taxation.' In a paper read before the Political Economy Club in London on 5 July 1901, the chief conclusions of which he summarised in a letter to 'The Times' (6 Nov.), he urged a 'tariff for revenue,' and sketched out the cardinal points of the tariff reform movement before they had been formulated by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.
In the House of Commons Samuelson, who gave expert advice on all industrial questions, was best known by his strenuous advocacy of technical instruction. His chief public services were identified with that subject. He thoroughly believed in the need among Englishmen of every rank of a strict scientific training. In 1867 he investigated personally and with great thoroughness the conditions of technical education in the chief industrial centres of Europe and made a valuable report (Parl. Papers, 1867). He was in 1868 chairman of a committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the provisions for instruction in theoretical and applied science to the industrial classes ; and he was a member of the duke of Devonshire's royal commission on scientific instruction (1870), being responsible for that part of the report which dealt with the Science and Art Department. In 1881 he had full opportunity of using his special study to the public advantage on being made chairman of the royal commission on technical instruction. He was also a member of Viscount Cross's royal commission on elementary education in 1887, and next year of the parliamentary committee for inquiring into the working of the education acts.
His activity in other industrial inquiries was attested by a series of reports which he prepared in 1867 for the foreign office, on the iron trade between England and France, when renewal of the commercial treaty between the two countries was under consideration. He was chairman of parliamentary committees on the patent laws (1871-2) and on railways (1873). He was a member of the royal commission for the Paris exhibition of 1878, and received in that year the cross of the Legion of Honour. In 1886 he was chairman of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom.
His scientific attainments were acknowledged by his election as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1881. He was a member of the council in 1887-8. He joined the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1865, and the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1869. He was one of the founders of the Iron and Steel Institute in the latter year, and was president of that body in 1883-5.
In 1884 Samuelson presented to Banbury a technical institute, which was opened by A. J. Mundella on 2 July 1884. Mundella then announced that a baronetcy had been conferred on Samuelson for his services to the education of the people. The benefactor's portrait by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, of which a replica hangs in the reading room, was presented to him on the same occasion.
Samuelson, who was long an enthusiastic yachtsman, died of pneumonia at his residence, 56 Princes Gate, S. W., on 10 May 1905, and was buried at Torre cemetery, Torquay. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Henry Bernhard, formerly M.P. for Frome. Samuelson married (1) in 1844 Caroline (d. 1886), daughter of Henry Blundell, J.P., of Hull, by whom he had four sons and four daughters; and (2) in 1889 Lelia Mathilda, daughter of the Chevalier Leon Serena and widow of William Denny of Dumbarton.
Samuelson published at Gladstone's request a memoir on Irish land tenure (1869), and a report on the railway goods tariffs of Germany, Belgium, and Holland, presented to the Associated Chambers of Commerce Birmingham, 1885). Besides his presidential address (1883), he contributed to the 'Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute' papers on the Terni steel-works (1887, pt. i. p. 31) and on the construction and cost of blast-furnaces in the Cleveland district (ib. p. 91).
An oil painting by Gelli of Florence belongs to the eldest son, and a bronze bust by Fantachiotti of Florence, of which there are terra-cotta replicas, belongs to the second son, Francis. Sir Bemhard's eldest son added to the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital at Mont Boron, Nice, the 'Sir Bernhard Samuelson memorial annexe' for infectious cases, with twenty beds ; a replica of Fantachiotti's bust is on the façade. An addition was also made in Sir Bernhard's memory to the Middlesbrough infirmary. A memorial painted window has been placed in Over Compton church, Sherborne, Dorsetshire, by Sir Bernhard's eldest daughter, Caroline, wife of Colonel Goodden.
[Banbury Guardian, Yorkshire Post, and The Times, 11 May 1905; Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, 1905, pt. i. p. 504; Engineer, and Engineering, 12 May 1905; Burke's Peerage and Baronetage; private information.]