Samuel was born into an Iraqi Jewish family from modern-day Iraq, in Whitechapel, London. His father, also used the name Marcus Samuel, ran a successful import-export business, M. Samuel & Co., trading with the coalition in the Far East, which Marcus carried on with his brother, Samuel Samuel.
Marcus Samuel realised the potential of the oil trade during a trip to Bukharia, near the Black Sea in 1890, and ordered the construction of eight dedicated tankers, the first of which was Murex, which was under the command of Captain John R Coundon. His were the first such ships to satisfy the Suez Canal company of their safety, allowing him to ship his product to Bangkok and Singapore. In 1897 he formed Shell, after his first business, which sold painted seashells. He was knighted in 1898 for assisting in the salvage of HMS Victorious, which had grounded under questionable circumstances and was pulled to safety by the Shell tanker SS Pecten.
He traveled to the Far East in 1873. When in India he chartered local ships to carry surplus rice from Siam to Calcutta to bring relief of the famine there. A decade later he came to the rescue when Japan’s rice crops failed by importing vast quantities of rice from Rangoon.
In 1878 he founded companies in London and Japan together with his younger brother Samuel Samuel (his partner throughout his business career). He began transporting oil to the Far East from Russian wells owned by the Rothschilds. Soon cornering a sizable proportion of the oriental market. He erected tank installations and distribution depots, and built a Beet of tankers designed specifically to carry bulk oil (all the ships were given names of shells), pioneering the transport of oil through the Suez Canal.
In 1897 he established the Shell Transport and Trading Company and at the same time opened up oil fields in Borneo. As Britain’s recognized expert in on liquid fuel, he advocated its use in railway engines and steamers. He was the first oilman to recognize the revolutionary implications of the invention of the motor car and also secured a license for the development of the diesel engine in Britain.
In 1901 Shell entered into a marketing alliance with Royal Dutch Petroleum to form the British-Dutch Oil Company and under Marcus Samuel’s guidance built up a giant worldwide enterprise. By 1902, M. Samuel & Company had become leading merchant bankers and acted as the London bankers for the Japanese government. In 1904 the emperor of Japan conferred on Marcus Samuel the title of commander of the Rising Sun for supplying fuel to his navy during the Russo-Japanese war.
Marcus Samuel also had an active public life, sometimes to the detriment of his vast enterprises. In 1891 he was elected as an alderman in the City of London. He was sheriff of London in 1894 and chairman of the Port of London Committee in 1895. Queen Victoria conferred a knighthood on Samuel in 1898 for his services in helping free a British warship run aground at the entrance to the Suez Canal, for which he refused to accept payment. He was created a baronet in 1903 and in 1902 became the third Jew to hold the office of lord mayor of London. When planning the lord mayor’s banquet he refused to invite the Romanian minister because of the persecution of Jews in that country (he refused to do business w'ith them as well) despite strong objections from the Foreign Office, the prime minister, and even the king. His inauguration procession went through the district where he grew up and was reported as follows: “The Ghetto exceeded itself and ushered in the new Chief Magistrate with a heartiness which had never been exceeded and seldom equaled.”
Samuel used his influence to alleviate the lot of the Jews in countries where they were persecuted, and a letter from the Russian ambassador assured him that steps had been taken to prevent any further massacres of Jews.
During World War I. under Samuel’s leadership Shell was the principal supplier of gasoline and aviation fuel to the British forces (sold at prewar prices). A refinery to manufacture toluol, the basic clement of TNT, erected in Britain and providing 80 percent of all the explosives used by the navy and army, was handed over to the ministry of munitions.
In 1921 Marcus Samuel was granted a peerage “for eminent public and national services.” He took the title Lord Bearsted, the name of the parish where he established his country residence in 1895. In 1925 he was made a viscount.
Throughout his life Samuel gave generously to Jewish and non-Jewish charities (the Bearsted Memorial Hospital in London was named for him), especially those in the city of London, and to causes related to the sea.
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