Who is Samuel Morley? Morley is a long forgotten historical icon that pioneered progressions in industry, human rights, and education. This archive is dedicated to his legacy and the relevance of his ethos and social activism which can serve as inspiration to all.

He was born at Homerton in 1809, the youngest child of a small and prosperous Nottingham hosier John Morley. The shop was in London, but the family had been settled in Nottingham for some two hundred years, and, having been Puritans, had gradually developed into Independents. From his earliest years, he was familiar with the associations of wealth and the straitest sect of Evangelical theology. The father of Samuel Morley was a staunch Nonconformist and a Liberal, and he sent his sons to Dissenting schools in Cambridgeshire and Hampshire. At the age of six- teen, Samuel Morley entered his father's house of business in Wood Street, Cheapside, and before long became its sole master.