Marcus Samuel

1853-1927

Oil magnate

Marcus Samuel was a pioneer in the global shipment of oil, became Lord Mayor of London and died as 1st Viscount Bearsted. The company he founded, Shell, is still a leader in world energy with a corporate identity that attests to its origins in a Jewish shop near the London docks.

Samuel senior, also named Marcus Samuel, ran an import-export business in the mid-1800s. It made a fortune from the Victorian craze for shell-boxes, buying exotic shells from returning sea captains and turning into them into fashionable items for the home.

Sent overseas to work for the family business, Marcus began to see opportunities in the Far East following the break-up of the monopoly of the East India Company, and as new territories such as Japan opened up to world trade.

When their father died in 1870 Marcus and his brother Samuel took over the business. A major product was kerosene for lighting.

Inventing the oil tanker

The conventional way of shipping oil was costly and the barrels often leaked. Marcus created the bulk oil tanker, transporting oil one way to be discharged directly into a tank at the destination port, and cleaning out the hulls to pack in other goods on the return voyage. With bigger vessels and shorter routes, more oil could be supplied to the world.

The first oil shipped through the new Suez Canal in 1892 came from the Caucasus and was carried by his first tanker, Murex. Within three years another 69 tanker passages were to be made through the canal, all but four of them by Samuel-owned or -chartered vessels.

By 1897 Marcus Samuel had become an Alderman of the City of London, and Marcus and his brother founded the Shell Transport and Trading Company. It had cut costs in such a revolutionary way that competitors could not afford to under-sell them.

Founder of Shell

Samuel was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1902, and presided over the creation of the Port of London Authority. Meanwhile his company struck oil in and opened a refinery in what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). In 1907 Shell merged with a competitor to form the Royal Dutch Shell Group. Demand for petrol to power motor cars and aeroplanes drove further expansion for the company recognised by its shell logo.

In World War One Shell was the major supplier of fuel to the British Army and offered all its ships to the Navy. Marcus Samuel was given the hereditary title of Viscount Samuel in 1925.

Marcus died on the same day in January 1927 as Fanny, his wife of 45 years. They are buried at Willesden Cemetery beside a memorial to their second son, Gerald, who was killed in action in World War One.

“We have lost a great Jew and a great Englishman; we have lost a true woman of worth – a noble daughter of Israel… They were lovely and pleasing in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided,” said Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, who led their joint funeral.

'Lord Bearsted' 1922 Artist: William Orpen
© Alamy Stock Photo