[1] Samuel was the son of Robert Read, a boot and shoemaker.
[3] He also learned watercolour painting, from William Collingwood Smith.
He travelled widely for the magazine, abroad and for British topographical subjects.
[3] Read married a daughter of Robert Carruthers, who owned and edited the Inverness Courier.
Three of his drawings – The Moated Grange, The Corridor, Brewers’ Hall, Antwerp, and Toledo Cathedral— are kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum.