Samuel Morton Peto

Sir Samuel Morton Peto

Sir Samuel Morton Peto, 1st Baronet (4 August 1809 – 13 November 1889) was an English entrepreneur and civil engineer in the 19th century. A partner in Grissell and Peto, he managed construction firms that built many major buildings and monuments in London. He then became one of the major contractors to build the rapidly expanding railways of the time.

Early life

Samuel Morton Peto was born in Woking, Surrey. As a youth, he was apprenticed as a bricklayer to his uncle Henry Peto, who ran a building firm in London.

Career

When the uncle died in 1830, Peto and his older cousin Thomas Grissell (who had been a partner to his uncle for five years), went into partnership. The firm of Grissell and Peto (1830–1847) built many well-known buildings in London, including the Reform Club, the Oxford & Cambridge Club, the Lyceum, and St James's Theatre, Hungerford Market and Bloomsbury Chapel (1848), the first Baptist church with spires in London. In addition, they built Nelson's Column (1843) and the vast infrastructure project of the London brick sewer.

Railway works

In 1834 Peto saw the potential of the newly developing railways and dissolved the connection with his uncle's building firm. He and his cousin Grissell founded a business as an independent railway contractor. His firm's first railway work was to build two stations in Curzon Street, Birmingham. Next the firm built its first line of track, the Hanwell and Langley section of the Great Western Railway, which included the Wharncliffe Viaduct.^[1] Grissell became increasingly nervous of the risks taken by Peto and dissolved the partnership in 1846.^[2]

Peto then entered into partnership with Edward Betts, who had married his sister Ann.^[2] Between 1846 and 1855, the firm carried out many large railway contracts both at home and abroad, including the following:

• the South-Eastern Line; and
• the London, Chatham & Dover lines.

In partnership with Thomas Brassey, they built the following:

• the London, Tilbury & Southend line; and
• the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.^[3]

In the late 1850s, Peto and Betts helped to build the first railway in Algeria. Peto accompanied Napoleon III to the official opening of the line.^[4] In 1854 during the Crimean War Peto, Betts and Brassey constructed the Grand Crimean Central Railway between Balaklava and Sevastopol to transport supplies to the troops at the front line.^[5]

In February 1855, the government recognized Peto for his wartime services; he was made a Baronet, of Somerleyton Hall in the County of Suffolk.

King Frederick of Denmark honoured Peto for establishing the Flensburg–Husum–Tönning Railway Company and its construction of railways in the Duchy of Schleswig, which led to a growing export/import trade with the Port of Lowestoft.

Other activities

In 1844, Peto bought Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk. He re-built the hall with contemporary amenities, as well as constructing a school and more houses in the village. He next built similar projects in Lowestoft, also in Suffolk.

In 1846, Peto became co-treasurer of the Baptist Missionary Society. From 1855 to March 1867, he was sole treasurer, resigning after personal financial difficulties.^[6]

Peto served for two decades as a Member of Parliament (MP). He was elected a Liberal Member for Norwich in 1847 to 1854, for Finsbury from 1859 to 1865, and for Bristol from 1865 to 1868. During this time, he was one of the most prominent figures in public life. He helped to make a guarantee towards the financing of the Great Exhibition of 1851, backing Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace.^[4]

Peto suffered in the financial crisis of 1866, and had to declare bankruptcy. In 1868 he had to give up his seat in Parliament, despite having the support of both Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone. He exiled himself to Budapest and tried to promote railways in Russia and Hungary. When he returned to England, he tried to launch a small mineral railway in Cornwall. This failed. He died in obscurity in 1889.^[7]

Family

In May 1831, Peto married Mary Grissell, one of the sisters of his later partner Thomas Grissell. They had four children before Mary's death in 1842:^[8]

1. Henry (1840–1938) who succeeded as the 2nd baronet on 1899
2. Annie
3. Sophia
4. Mary, who married Penruddocke Wyndham, a grandson of Colonel Wadham Wyndham, in 1852 and had two daughters.

Peto then married Sarah Ainsworth Kelsall, the daughter of Henry Kelsall of Rochdale. Peto and Sarah had ten children. Of these:

1. Morton Kelsall (b. 1845)
2. William Herbert (b. 1849)
3. Samuel Arthur (b. 1852)
4. Harold Ainsworth Peto (1854–1933), became a celebrated Edwardian landscape architect. (Source: Mowl, T. Historic Gardens of Wiltshire, London: Tempus Publishing, 2004.)
5. Frank Kelsall (b. 1858)
6. Basil Edward Peto (1862–1945) was created a baronet in his own right in 1927. His grandson Christopher Peto, 3rd Bt. was a Conservative politician. (Source: 107th edition of Burke, Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, London: 2004).
7. Sarah
8. Maude
9. Edith
10. Emily
11. Helen Agnes married Lawrence Ingham Baker, son of the former Liberal MP for Frome; he was a Magistrate of Somerset. They lived at Wayford Manor, near Crewkerne, Somerset.

Notes

1. ^ Joby, p. 59.
2. ^ ^{a b} Faith, pp. 103-104.
3. ^ Helps. p. 109.
4. ^ ^{a b} Faith, p. 105.
5. ^ Cooke, pp. 16-64
6. ^ Stanley, Brian (1992: 218) The History of the Baptist Missionary Society 1792-1992 1992 Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark
7. ^ Faith, p. 106. He is buried with his second wife at Pembury old church, near Tonbridge, Kent.
8. ^ The Architecture of Sir Ernest George and His Partners, C. 1860-1922 (Hilary Joyce Grainger, 1885) [1]

References

• Brooks, Edward C. Sir Samuel Morton Peto Bt: eminent Victorian, railway entrepreneur, country squire, MP, Bury Clerical Society, 1996 ISBN 0950298826
• Cooke, Brian. The Grand Crimean Central Railway, Knutsford: Cavalier House, 1990 ISBN 0-9515889-0-7
• Cox, John G. Samuel Morton Peto; the achievements and failings of a great railway developer, The Railway and Canal Historical Society, 2008, ISBN 978-0-901461-568
• Faith, Nicholas. The world the railways made, London: The Bodley Head, 1990 ISBN 0-370-31299-6
• Helps, Arthur. The Life and Works of Mr Brassey, 1872 republished Nonsuch, 2006 ISBN 1845880110
• Joby, R S. The Railway Builders: Lives and Works of the Victorian Railway Contractors, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1983, ISBN 0-7153-7959-3
• Stacey, Tom. Thomas Brassey: The Greatest Railway Builder in the World, Stacey International, London, 2005, ISBN 1905299095

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Samuel Morton Peto

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Marquess Douro Benjamin Smith	Member of Parliament for Norwich 1847–1854 With: Marquess Douro 1847–1852 Edward Warner 1852–1854	Succeeded by Edward Warner Sir Samuel Bignold
Preceded by Thomas Slingsby Duncombe William Cox	Member of Parliament for Finsbury 1859–1865 With: Thomas Slingsby Duncombe 1859–1861 William Cox 1861–1865	Succeeded by William Torrens McCullagh Torrens Sir Andrew Lusk
Preceded by Francis Henry Fitzhardinge Berkeley William Henry Gore-Langton	Member of Parliament for Bristol 1865–1868 With: Francis Henry Fitzhardinge Berkeley	Succeeded by Francis Henry Fitzhardinge Berkeley John William Miles
Baronetage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baronet (of Somerleyton Hall) 1855–1889	Succeeded by Henry Peto

Persondata
Name	Peto, Samuel Morton
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	4 August 1809
Place of birth
Date of death	13 November 1889
Place of death