Marmaduke Blake Sampson (1809 – 3 October 1876) worked at the Bank of England and he was the financial editor (1858) and the City Editor (1872 – City Correspondent for The Times from 1846 – 1871) of the London Times for thirty years. He was also the Consul General for the Argentine Republic in Great Britain and Consul General in London for the Republic of Bolivia.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was the Chairman of the British Homeopathic Association and active in the foundation of the London Homeopathic Hospital, which was established at 32 Golden Square in 1851 (Marmaduke Blake Sampson, The concluding task of the disciples of homœopathy, an address by M.B. Sampson delivered at a general meeting of the British Homeopathic Association, together with a report of the proceedings of the meeting, (1849)).

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was reputed to have ‘more financial influence that the Queen’.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was a friend of George Augustus Sala. Marmaduke Blake Sampson’s name appears in the Collected Works of John Stuart Mill.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was an associate of Frederick Hervey Foster Quin and John Epps, and he knew all of the homeopaths in the British Homeopathic Society and the British Homeopathic Association.

Sampson was an advocate of phrenology and was active in the London Phrenological Society and an associate of George Combe.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was a prodigious writer who wrote for liberal magazines and newspapers and The Spectator. He was also published in Charles Dickens‘ Miscelleny in 1837. In April 1850 Sampson’s paper Central America and the transit between the oceans was printed in John Chapman‘s Westminster Review in April 1850. In his many years at the London Times he wrote many articles.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was enthusiastic about The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and he wrote an open letter to the (at the time) anonymous author and also sent a copy to George Combe.

In 1849, Sampson led the campaign for the establishment of a London Homeopathic Hospital, which was established at 32 Golden Square in 1851.

The British Homeopathic Society was formed in 1844 by eight homeopaths, including Frederick Hervey Foster Quin as the first President of the British Homeopathic Society, and by 1847, an Honorary Member of the British Homeopathic Association.

Marmaduke Sampson was the Chairman of the British Homeopathic Association formed in 1847 by forty members out of a body of homeopaths thirteen hundred strong.

By 1849, the British Homeopathic Society could boast forty four members, whose ‘medical qualifications were examined with the strictest scrutiny‘. These were very early days for homeopathy in Britain, and our numbers were rather small.

Sampson reports that the first Government Officer of the colony on the island of Labuan in New Zealand was an ‘earnest member‘ of the British Homeopathic Association. Was this ‘earnest member’ the colleague William Chapman, a homeopath practicing in London until 1851 when he emigrated to New Zealand on the Labuan went out to join?

Regarding the Association for the Trial of Preventative and Curative Treatment in the Cattle Plague by the Homeopathic Method 1866, The Times wrote an article wishing the homeopaths success in these homeopathic trials, but they also made a pithy comment that the allopaths would probably rather see all the cattle die than have homeopathy proved successfull (?written by Marmaduke Blake Sampson City Correspondent for The Times from 1846 – 1871?).

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was the Chairman of the Tontine Association and he was also a director of the Mutual Life Assurance Society, and 1871 he purchased Hampton Court House:

House enfranchised. Sold to Marmaduke Blake Sampson, city correspondent of the Times and Argentine Consul in London. He built the Picture Gallery, later a ballroom and subsequently concert room and finally a theatre used by Teddington Theatre Club.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was an accomplished classical scholar, had been secretary of the treasury committee of the Bank of England, was city editor of the London Times for 30 years, and wrote its financial columns (1854-74).

He was present at *George Peabody‘s July 4, 1854, dinner at the Star and Garter at Richmond near London, at which super patriot U.S. London Legation Secretary Daniel Edgar Sickles walked out in anger because George Peabody toasted Queen Victoria before toasting the U.S. President.

George Peabody consulted with Marmaduke Blake Sampson during the subsequent charge and counter charge in letters to newspapers over the incident….

Marmaduke Blake Sampson was also the only Englishman who attended George Peabody‘s July 9, 1858, banquet at the Crystal Palace, London, for 50 Americans, including U.S. Minister to Britain George Mifflin Dallas and family and John Pendleton Kennedy.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson is also mentioned in connection with the public announcement of George Peabody‘s March 12, 1862, Peabody Donation Fund letter founding the Peabody Homes of London.

*The young Peabody Family were enthusiastic supporters of homeopathy.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson, formerly well known as city editor of the Times for 25 years, died at Hampton Court on 2nd October.

Mr Sampson had an important share in the framing of the Bank Act of 1844, he being then Private Secretary to the Governor of the Bank of England.

After his enforced retirement from the London Times, he took a leading part for a time in the conduct of the Echo, but retired from this also for some months before his death.

The disclosures as to his not very honorable condhek (?)  in respect of certain speculative companies, tarnished a reputation which might have stood second to none in the world of journalism.

Marmaduke Blake Sampson whose connection with The Times had ceased ‘after the libel action against Albert Grant, a company promoter…

Marmaduke Blake Sampson’s wife died at Hampton Court House in 1882.

Select Publications:

Marmaduke Blake Sampson wrote The concluding task of the disciples of homeopathy, an address, Criminal Jurisprudence Considered in Relation to Mental Organization edited by Eliza W Farnam, Criminal Jurisprudence Considered in Relation to Cerebral Organization, Criminal Jurisprudence Considered in Relation to the Physiology of the Brain, Rationale of Crime, The phrenological theory of the treatment of criminals defended, in a letter, The Oregon Question, as it Stands, The currency under the act of 1844, Central America and the transit between the oceans, Nicaragua, Slavery in the United States, Homeopathy; Its Principle, Theory, and Practice, The Concluding Task of the Disciples of Homeopathy, Truths and Their Reception, Considered in Relation to the Doctrine of Homeopathy.