Arthur Samuels

Arthur Warren Samuels (19 May 1852 – 11 May 1925) was an Irish Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom parliament and subsequently a judge. The Irish Unionists were the Irish wing of the Conservative Party.

Arthur Samuels
Member of Parliament for Dublin University
In office 1917–1919
Preceded by	James Campbell
Succeeded by	William Jellett
Attorney-General for Ireland
In office 1918–1919
Preceded by	James O'Connor
Succeeded by	Denis Henry
Solicitor-General for Ireland
In office 1917–1918
Preceded by	James Chambers
Succeeded by	John Blake Powell
Personal details
Born	(1852-05-19)19 May 1852 County Dublin, Ireland
Died	11 May 1925(1925-05-11) (aged 72) La Croix, France
Political party	Irish Unionist
Spouse	Emma Irwin ​ (m. 1881)​
Children	2
Education	Royal School Dungannon
Alma mater	Trinity College Dublin

Biography

He was born in Kingstown, County Dublin, second son of Arthur Samuels, a solicitor, and Katherine Daly, daughter of Owen Daly of Mornington, County Meath. He was educated at the Royal School Dungannon, County Tyrone. He attended Trinity College Dublin, before being called to the Irish Bar in 1877. He became a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1894 and was called to the English bar in 1896.^[1]

Samuels was Solicitor-General for Ireland from 1917 to 1918, and Attorney-General for Ireland from 1918 to 1919. He was also made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1918.^[1]

He was MP for Dublin University from February 1917 to July 1919, having previously been defeated in a 1903 by-election for the same constituency.^[1]

Samuels left the House of Commons when he was appointed to the office of Justice of the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland in 1919,^[1] an office which he held until the court's abolition under the Courts of Justice Act 1924. In common with most of the judges of the old regime, he was not appointed to the High Court established under the 1924 Act. He died a year later on 11 May 1925 in La Croix, France.^[1]

Maurice Healy in The Old Munster Circuit praised his personal qualities, his erudition and his valuable book on the financial aspects of Home Rule; but as a Law officer and judge dismissed him as "undistinguished".

Family

He married Emma Margaret Irwin in 1881, daughter of the Reverend James Irwin of Howth. They had two children; barrister and writer Arthur P. I. Samuels (1886–1916), and Dorothy Samuels (1892–1942).

The younger Arthur was an authority on Edmund Burke and edited a collection of his correspondence and writings, which he had almost completed when his work was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. He became a captain in the Royal Irish Rifles, and was killed on the Western Front in September 1916.^[2] His father completed his book on Burke, which was published in 1923.^[1] Young Arthur had married Dorothy Young of Milltown, County Antrim, in 1913.

Samuels' daughter, Dorothy Helen Daly, served during World War II as an ambulance driver with the American Ambulance Great Britain. She was killed by a German air raid during the Exeter Blitz on 4 May 1942. She had married Herbert James Daly but was widowed at the time of her death.^[3]