Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sotheby, Samuel (1771-1842)
SOTHEBY, SAMUEL (1771–1842), auctioneer and antiquary, born in 1771, was descended from the elder branch of a family settled at Pocklington and Birdsall in Yorkshire. William Sotheby [q. v.], the author, came from a younger branch. Samuel's uncle, John Sotheby (1740–1807), was partner and nephew of Samuel Baker (d. 1778) (see Nichols, Lit. Anecd. iii. 162–3; and Dibdin, Bibliograph. Decameron, iii. 445), who founded at York Street, Covent Garden, in 1744 the first sale-room instituted in this country exclusively for the disposal of books, manuscripts, and prints. In 1774 Baker took George Leigh into partnership, and from 1775 to 1777 the firm was styled S. Baker & G. Leigh. After 1778, when Baker died, Leigh carried on the business alone, but from 1780 to 1800 John Sotheby (Baker's nephew) was associated with him, and the firm was known as Leigh & Sotheby; it became Leigh, Sotheby, & Son in 1800, when John Sotheby's nephew Samuel joined it, and so continued till 1803. After 1803, and until the death of Leigh in 1815, the firm carried on their business at a new address, 145 Strand (Dibdin, op. cit. iii. 18, and Bibliography, a Poem, 1812). John Sotheby died in 1807, and on Leigh's death, eight years later, Samuel continued the concern by himself, moving to 3 Waterloo Street, Strand, about 1817. Soon afterwards he took his son, Samuel Leigh Sotheby [q. v.], into partnership, and in 1826 Messrs. Sotheby & Son printed a ‘Catalogue of the Collections sold by Messrs. Baker, Leigh, & Sotheby from 1744 to 1826.’ A set of the original catalogues, with the purchasers' names and prices, is in the British Museum. Samuel Sotheby conducted the dispersal of many famous libraries. He retired from business in 1827. The firm still flourishes as Sotheby, Wilkinson, & Hodge at 13 Wellington Street, Strand.
Sotheby was much interested in the origin and progress of the art of printing. He began to trace facsimiles of such early printed books as passed through his hands in 1814. After a visit to Holland in 1824 to examine specimens at Haarlem for his friend William Young Ottley [q. v.], his attention was first specially directed to block books. His extensive collections were edited by his son as ‘The Typography of the Fifteenth Century,’ 1845, and ‘Principia Typographica,’ 1858, 3 vols. 4to.
Sotheby died at Chelsea on 4 Jan. 1842, in his seventy-first year. He first married, in 1803, Harriet Barton (1775–1808), by whom he had two sons and two daughters; the youngest son was Samuel Leigh Sotheby. His second wife was Laura Smith, married in 1817. She had no surviving children.
[Gent. Mag. April 1842, pp. 442–4; Nichols's Lit. Illustrations, viii. 514; Allibone's Dictionary, ii. 2177–8; Times, 6 Jan. 1842; List of the Principal Catalogues of Baker, Leigh, Sotheby, &c., London, 1826, 8vo; Notes and Queries, 9th ser. i. 323.]