His father, also named Samuel Stocks, was also a businessman and arrived in South Australia a few months after his son.
was born in Stockport, Cheshire and arrived in Adelaide on the Glenarm on 1 December 1842 and immediately plunged into the business world of the young Colony.
[1] It was at a time of economic gloom but he invested heavily in the South Australian Mining Association which was prospecting for copper at Burra, north of Adelaide.
Their company (nicknamed "Snobs" – Captain Allen and Messrs. Stocks, Beck, Hallett, Bunce, Penny, Graham, Featherstone, Waterhouse, Sanders, Peacock, Drew, Bouch, Smith, and others) won rights to the northern section "Wheal Grey", which proved to be fabulously rich; the "Princess Royal" section to the south, won by the "Nobs", proved valueless except to the pastoralist.
The South Australian Register published this notice on the death of Samuel Stocks jun.