Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted, (5 November 1853 – 17 January 1927), known as Sir Marcus Samuel between 1898 and 1921 and subsequently as Lord Bearsted until 1925, was a Lord Mayor of London and the founder of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, which was later restructured including a Netherlands-based company commonly referred to as Royal Dutch Shell.

[1] He was educated at Edmonton and in Brussels, and travelled extensively in Asia before settling down in business, visiting Ceylon, Straits Settlements, Siam, the Philippines, China and Japan.

The ship transited the Suez Canal on 23 August, and proceeded onward to his storage facilities in Singapore and then Bangkok, for retail distribution.

He was made a justice of the peace in Kent, a master of the Spectacle Makers' Company, and received a knighthood for helping a British warship grounded at Port Said.

In recognition of his contribution to the British cause in World War I, he was created 1st Baron Bearsted of Maidstone in the County of Kent in the 1921 Birthday Honours.

[9] Samuel went riding every morning at Hyde Park, London, and his country house was on a 500-acre estate in Kent, called The Mote.