Samuel Smiles
(1812-1904)

Died aged c. 92

Samuel Smiles (23 December 1812 – 16 April 1904) was a British author and government reformer. Although he campaigned on a Chartist platform, he promoted the idea that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. His primary work, Self-Help (1859), promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire government. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism" and had lasting effects on British political thought.

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Commemorated on 2 plaques

Samuel Smiles 1812-1904 author of Self Help lived here

11 Granville Park, SE13 Lewisham, London, United Kingdom where they lived

Samuel Smiles (1812-1905) the great propagandist of Victorian values through his books, 'Self-Help', 'Character', 'Thrift' and 'Duty', inspired by his lectures to Leeds working men in 1845. He worked in Leeds 1838-58 as a newspaper editor, doctor and then railway secretary.

Leeds Institute, Millennium Square, Leeds, United Kingdom where they was