Samuel, Harold
SAMUEL, HAROLD
SAMUEL, HAROLD, Baron Samuel of Wych Cross (1912–1987), British property developer and art collector. A qualified property surveyor who was educated at Mill Hill school and at the College of Estate Management, in 1944 Samuel became chairman of Land Securities, which took over City Centre Properties and other companies, becoming the largest property company in the world. Samuel served as a member of the Covent Garden Market Authority from 1961 to 1974, which had the complex task of relocating the Central London fruit and vegetable market from its Covent Garden site to a new building at Nine Elms. He was active in other public work, including the presidency of the Central London Housing Trust for the Aged and vice presidency of the British Heart Foundation. He was knighted in 1963 and created a life peer in 1972. He was active in support for university education. He was also a noted art collector, bequeathing his collection, and his country house, Wych Cross Place in Sussex, to the Corporation of London. He was a cousin of the property developer and publisher Howard *Samuel.
bibliography:
H. Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England (1982), 229. add. bibliography: O. Marriott, The Property Boom (1967), 62–64.
[Vivian David Lipman]