Samuel Enderby

Samuel Enderby was a son of Daniel Enderby (1681–1766), tanner, of Bermondsey, and his wife, Mary, née Cook. Little is recorded of Samuel's early life. He married Mary Buxton, possibly related to a business acquaintance, John Buxton. They reared seven children: Charles (1753–1819), Daniel (b. 1756), Samuel (1756–1829), Mary (b. 1757), Hannah (b. 1759), Elizabeth (b. 1761), and George (b. 1762). As early as 2 January 1742 the elder Samuel Enderby's name appears among the freedom admissions to the Coopers' Company. He came to prominence in the early 1750s, when the firm of Samuel Enderby & Sons is recorded as oil merchants trading from Paul's Wharf, Thames Street, in the City of London.

By 1773 or 1774 he had become concerned with the northern whale fishery in Arctic waters. More significant was the firm's involvement with the American whalers of Massachusetts and Nantucket Island, suppliers of sperm whale oil and the spermaceti wax essential at that period for industrial and domestic use, but this lucrative trade ceased with the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1775 in which Enderby ships came to prominence, being those in which the famous shipment of tea rached Boston in 1777. Enderby reacted by sending whaling vessels, manned largely by experienced Nantucketers, to the newly developing southern whale fishery south of lat. 44° N, where sperm whales were to be found in abundance. The confirmation by the College of Arms in 1778 of the Enderby armorial ensigns was perhaps a reflection of the family's growing prosperity and influence in the City of London and in government circles.

In subsequent years the elder Samuel Enderby appeared as a frequent and persuasive petitioner before the committee for trade, seeking, along with other leading merchants, an extension to the fishery limits imposed by the East India Company. These views tended to coincide with those of government, whose policy was to achieve British supremacy in the southern whale fishery. A measure of the firm's success was the rounding of Cape Horn in 1788–9 by the Enderby vessel Emilia, the first British whaler to enter the Pacific, returning in 1790 with a highly profitable catch of oil. The colonization of New South Wales in 1788 gave the firm further opportunities to expand its business in whale and seal oil and to compete fairly with foreign competitors. By 1791 Enderby had opened an office in Port Jackson (Sydney), and his whalers were transporting convicts on their outward voyages to the whaling grounds. In his later years he continued to lobby government for legislation beneficial to the whaling industry. As the boundaries of the fisheries expanded so did the need for more favorable premiums for British whalers, for permission to revictual in certain foreign ports, and for the freedom for the whaling crews from arbitrary impressment by the navy.

The elder Samuel Enderby died on 12 September 1797 and was succeeded as senior partner by the younger Samuel Enderby partnered by his brothers Charles and George, all three of whom were freemen of the Coopers' Company.