Samuel, Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st viscount

Related Category: British and Irish History: Biographies

1870–1963, British statesman. Entering Parliament as a Liberal in 1902, he was postmaster general (1910–14, 1915–16) and home secretary (1916). He lost his seat in Parliament in 1918 but served as first British high commissioner in Palestine (1920–25) and chairman of the royal commission of inquiry into the coal industry (1925–26). He played an important role in negotiating an end to the general strike of 1926. In the Commons again (1929–35), Samuel was home secretary (1931–32) and leader of the Liberal party (1931–35). He was created a peer in 1937. Samuel's writings include Practical Ethics (1935), Belief and Action: An Everyday Philosophy (1937), and In Search of Reality (1957).

See his memoirs (1945).