Career
He was one of ten children born to Cornelius and Elizabeth Livermore Straker. In 1852, Samuel started work for the Electric Telegraph Company in Manchester. During the 1850s, Samuel was involved in supervising field telegraphs in the Crimean War.
He also published papers on cable signalling.
In 1861, Samuel took over the running of a telegraph factory in London, owned by his father. In 1866, he was among the first to make a self-excited dynamo.
Other contenders were Charles Wheatstone and Werner von Siemens. He also invented compound winding for dynamos.
In 1873 he read a paper at the Society of Engineers.
The subject was "Railway Train Intercommunication" and he described a system fitted to the London and North Western Railway Royal Train. Samuel died at Abbottsacre Lodge, Abbott"s Road, Winchester on 4 August 1921.
