Samuel Laing (science writer)

Samuel Laing (12 December 1812 – 6 August 1897) was a British railway administrator, politician, and writer on science and religion during the Victorian era.

Samuel Laing
"The infant Samuel"
Laing as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, August 1873
Born12 December 1812[1]
Died6 August 1897 (1897-08-07) (aged 84)
EducationSt John's College, Cambridge
OccupationRailway administrator, politician, writer
Parent(s)Samuel Laing
RelativesMalcolm Laing (uncle)
AwardsSmith's Prize (1832)

Biography

Early life

Samuel Laing was born on 12 December 1812[1] in Edinburgh. His father, also called Samuel Laing (1780–1868), was a well-known author, whose books on Norway and Sweden attracted much attention. Laing the Younger's uncle was historian Malcolm Laing. Laing the Younger entered St John's College, Cambridge in 1827, and after graduating as Second Wrangler and Smith's Prizeman, was elected a fellow.[2] He remained at Cambridge temporarily as a coach, before being called to the bar in 1837.

Career

He became private secretary to Henry Labouchere, later 1st Baron Taunton, who was then the President of the Board of Trade. In 1842, he was made secretary to the railway department, and retained this post until 1847. He had by then become an authority on railways, and had been a member of the Dalhousie Railway Commission; it was at his suggestion that the "parliamentary" rate of a penny a mile was instituted. In 1848, he was appointed chairman and managing director of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), and his business acumen showed itself in the largely increased prosperity of the line. He also became chairman (1852) of The Crystal Palace Company, but retired from both posts in 1855.

In 1852, he was elected to Parliament as a Liberal Party candidate in Wick Burghs. After losing his seat in 1857, he was re-elected in 1859, and appointed Financial Secretary to the Treasury; in 1860 he was made finance minister in India. On returning from India, he was re-elected to parliament for Wick in 1865. He was defeated in 1868, but in 1873 he was returned for Orkney and Shetland, and retained his seat until 1885. Early in 1867 he was elected to the board of the Great Eastern Railway who by that point were sliding towards receivership. On 1 July, the day before the GER went into receivership, he was reappointed chairman of the Brighton line, which was now on the point of bankruptcy following the over-ambitious expansion plans of the previous chairman. He continued in that post until 1896, and gradually restored the company to financial health.[3] He was also chairman of the Railway Debenture Trust and the Railway Share Trust[4]

Although often claimed to have been the father of the novelist Mary Eliza Kennard (1850–1936),[5] this is in dispute.[6] However birth entries at the General Register Office for her sons Lionel Edward Kennard and Malcolm Alfred Kennard both have Laing as the mother's maiden name. Furthermore the transcribed parish record entry for her marriage to Edward Kennard on 19 April 1870 at Saint Nicholas church, Brighton gives her name as Mary Eliza Laing, daughter of Samuel Laing.

In later life, he became well known as an author, his Modern Science and Modern Thought (1885), Problems of the Future (1889) and Human Origins (1892). Laing's attitude was generally positive towards new developments in science, and he offered an optimistic vision of progressive modernity. He also wrote on religion. His book A Modern Zoroastrian argued that the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism was more consistent with modern scientific thought than was traditional Christianity. He argued that the "all pervading principle of polarity" that was central Zoroastrian thought has been confirmed by science, and that modern Christianity should abandon its traditional theology to centre on the figure of Jesus as an ideal of humanity.

Death

He died on 6 August 1897 in Sydenham, England and was buried in the Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery.

References

  1. "Laing, Samuel". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15892. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. "Laing, Samuel (LN827S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. Searle, David. "LB&SCR Chairman". LB&SCR Online. Archived from the original on 6 July 2008. Retrieved 25 April 2009.
  4. Ashton, Geoff (April 2013). "The Great Eastern Railway 1862-1865". Great Eastern Journal. 155: 36, 37.
  5. Kennard, Mrs Edward: Mary Eliza Laing, OxfordReference.com, retrieved 22 February 2014
  6. Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, Isobel Grundy, The Feminist Companion to Literature in English (1990), p. 606: "Kennard, Mary Eliza (Faber), 'Mrs Edward Kennard', d. 1936, sporting novelist, da. of Mary (Beckett) and Charles Wilson F. (not Samuel Laing, as sometimes claimed) of Northaw, Herts."
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
James Loch
Member of Parliament for Wick Burghs
18521857
Succeeded by
Lord John Hay
Preceded by
Lord John Hay
Member of Parliament for Wick Burghs
1859–1860
Succeeded by
Viscount Bury
Preceded by
Viscount Bury
Member of Parliament for Wick Burghs
18651868
Succeeded by
George Loch
Preceded by
Frederick Dundas
Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland
1873–1885
Succeeded by
Leonard Lyell
Political offices
Preceded by
Sir Stafford Northcote
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
1859–1860
Succeeded by
Frederick Peel
Business positions
Preceded by
Charles Pascoe Grenfell
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway

1848–1855
Succeeded by
Leo Schuster
Preceded by
Col. Walter Barttelot, MP
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway

1867–1896
Succeeded by
Lord Cottesloe
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