Marcus Samuel (dealer)

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Marcus Samuel ( April 4, 1799 - November 24, 1872 in London ) was a Jewish Orthodox trader. He founded the predecessor of today's Royal Dutch Shell Company with a curiosity shop .

Samuel was the son of Samuel Samuel (1762–1855) and Leah Keyser († 1860). He married Abigail Moss († 1874), the daughter of Abraham Moss. The family were immigrants who came from Holland and Bavaria around 1750 and therefore did not belong to the country's old Sephardim families.

In 1833, Marcus Samuel started his own trade by buying curiosities from returning sailors in the Port of London. A census from 1851 recorded him as a shell dealer at the Tower of London . One of his most popular articles were "knickknack boxes", small trinkets -cartons with glued shells, which as a "gift from Brighton were sold" to young visitors to the resort in the south.

After he had amassed some fortune around 1860, he began to expand the trade and now imported ostrich feathers, pepper sacks, partridge canes (walking sticks) and sheet metal. As an exporter, he sold products to a growing number of manufacturers, including the first mechanical loom to Japan.

He developed a network of trust with some of the UK's largest trading houses in Calcutta, Singapore, Bangkok, Manila, Hong Kong and other parts of the Far East. They were mostly run by emigrated Scots. This would later be of great use to his eldest son, Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted , when he expanded the business to include oil products in particular. The younger son Samuel Samuel (* April 7, 1855, † October 23, 1934) became a trader and member of parliament.

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  1. ^ Charles Mosley: Burke's Peerage and Baronetage , 106th edition, 2 volumes (Crans), Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 1999.
  2. ^ Daniel Yergin: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power , Free Press, 1993 ISBN 0-671-79932-0 .

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personal data
SURNAME Samuel, Marcus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1799
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1872
Place of death London