BEALE, Samuel (1803-1874), of Warfield Grove, Berks.

Beale was born in Birmingham into a family of Unitarian merchants.1A. Rowley, ‘Beale family’, Oxford DNB. In common with other local Unitarians, Beale was a political Radical who participated in civic and public life. At a young age he served as the low bailiff, an important local office prior to the establishment of Birmingham’s town council in 1838.2Birmingham Daily Post, 14 Sept. 1874; D. Fraser, Power and Authority in the Victorian City (1979), 79. He was appointed an alderman to the first council, which has been described as the Birmingham Political Union ‘in permanent session’, given the overlap in membership between the two bodies, and became its third mayor in 1841, the same year that he was appointed a magistrate.3C. Gill, History of Birmingham (1952), i. 233; Fraser, Power and Authority, 79; D. Fraser, Urban Politics in Victorian England (1976), 124, 143. Beale’s focus on his business career, however, meant that he never attained the political prominence of other Radical figures in Birmingham’s business elite.4Birmingham Daily Post, 14 Sept. 1874; History, gazetteer, and directory of Warwickshire (1850), 37.

Beale, who had extensive commercial interests, helped to found the Birmingham and Midland Bank in 1836, of which he was a director, had shares in other financial establishments, and interests in ironworks in Derbyshire and Yorkshire.5‘Beale family’; Birmingham Daily Post, 14 Sept. 1874; A List of the country banks of England and Wales, private and proprietary (1838), 98, 129; Derby Mercury, 21 Aug. 1861. But it was the rapidly developing railway industry which occupied most of his energies. A shareholder in the pioneering scheme to construct a London-Birmingham line, which was first opened in 1837, he later sat on the board of the newly amalgamated Midland Railway from 1844 to 1849, becoming vice chairman after the ignominious resignation of the former chairman, ‘Railway King’ and MP for Sunderland, George Hudson, in 1849. Beale served as chairman from 1858 to 1864.62 & 3 Will. IV, c.36; Derby Mercury, 24 Aug. 1864; C. Stretton, The History of Midland Railway (1901), 72-73, 140, 157, 263-64, 271-72. During his career he was also a director of many other railway companies, such as the South Staffordshire and Birmingham and Gloucester lines, and served as chairman of the West End and Crystal Palace railway in the late 1850s.7The Railway Directory (1846), 9, 19, 32; The Railway Directory (1847), 155; Bradshaw’s General Railway Directory (1850), 207, 219-20; Derby Mercury, 22 Sept. 1897.

The Midland Railway gave Beale a strong connection with Derby, where the company had its headquarters and was a major local employer. But when Beale came forward as a Liberal candidate in 1857, he was careful to avoid any suggestion that he exercised influence over his employees’ political preferences.8Derby Mercury, 18, 25 Mar., 1 Apr. 1857. Beale honoured promises made to electors by voting for the abolition of Church rates, the ballot, and a number of borough and county Franchise Bills.9The Times, 17 Mar., 12 June 1858, 15 Mar., 23 Apr., 21 June 1861, 16 May 1862; Birmingham Daily Post, 12 Apr. 1861; Leeds Mercury, 13 May 1865. However, business commitments meant that Beale made little contribution at Parliament beyond voting in divisions and this was compounded by increasing ill-health, which forced him to resign as Chairman of Midland Railway in 1864.10Birmingham Daily Post, 14 Sept. 1874; Derby Mercury, 6 July 1864. Seeking re-election in 1865, he explained to electors that ‘Although I was able to vote on the most important occasions, my health was so much impaired that I could not give that sedulous attention to my duties which you had a right to expect.’ 11Derby Mercury, 28 July 1865. He finished bottom of the poll and is not known to have attempted a return to the Commons.

Beale died in 1874, leaving an estate worth £350,000.12Ibid. 18 Nov. 1874. His nephew Sir William Phipson Beale unsuccessfully contested a number of west Midlands constituencies as a Gladstonian Liberal, before representing South Ayrshire from 1906 to 1918.13M. Stenton and S. Lees, Who’s Who of British Members of Parliament (1978), ii. 27, although this entry incorrectly says he successfully contested the Midlands seats.