Samuel Smiles (1812 - 1904). Samuel Smiles was a Scottish author and government reformer. Although he campaigned on a Chartist platform, he concluded that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. His masterpiece, Self-Help, promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire government. It has been called the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism and raised Smiles to celebrity status almost overnight. Born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, Smiles was the son of Janet Wilson of Dalkeith and Samuel Smiles of Haddington. He was one of eleven surviving children. While his family members were strict Reformed Presbyterians, he did not practice. He studied at a local school, leaving at the age of 14. He apprenticed to be a doctor under Dr. Robert Lewins. This arrangement enabled Smiles to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1829. There he furthered his interest in politics, and became a strong supporter of Joseph Hume. During this time, Samuel junior contracted a lung disease, and his father was advised to send him on a long sea voyage. His father died in the 1832 cholera epidemic, but Smiles was enabled to continue with his studies because he was supported by his mother. She ran the small family general store firm in the belief that the Lord will provide. Her example of working ceaselessly to support herself and his nine younger siblings strongly influenced Smiles's future life, but he developed a benign and tolerant outlook that was sometimes at odds with that of his Reformed Presbyterian forebears. In 1837, he wrote articles for the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle and the Leeds Times, campaigning for parliamentary reform. In November 1838, Smiles was invited to become the editor of the Leeds Times, a position he accepted and filled until 1842. In May 1840, Smiles became secretary to the Leeds Parliamentary Reform Association, an organisation that held to the six objectives of Chartism: universal suffrage for all men over the age of 21; equal-sized electoral districts; voting by secret ballot; an end to the need of MPs to qualify for Parliament, other than by winning an election; pay for MPs; and annual Parliaments. As editor of the Leeds Times, he advocated radical causes ranging from women's suffrage to free trade and parliamentary reform. By the late 1840s, however, Smiles became concerned about the advocation of physical force by Chartists Feargus O'Connor and George Julian Harney, although he seems to have agreed with them that the movement's current tactics were not effective, saying that mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. On 7 December 1843, Samuel married Sarah Ann Holmes Dixon in Leeds. They had three daughters and two sons. In 1845, he left the Leeds Times and became a secretary for the newly formed Leeds & Thirsk Railway. After nine years, he worked for the South Eastern Railway. In the 1850s, Smiles abandoned his interest in parliament and decided that self-help was the most important place of reform. In 1859, he published his book Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct. Smiles wrote articles for the Quarterly. In an article on railways, he argued that the railways should be nationalised and that third-class passengers should be encouraged. In 1861 Smiles published an article from the Quarterly, renamed Workers Earnings, Savings, and Strikes. He claimed poverty in many instances was caused by habitual improvidence: Times of great prosperity, in which wages are highest and mills running full time are not times in which Mechanics' Institutes and Schools flourish, but times in which publicans and beer sellers prosper and grow rich. A workman earning 50s. to 60s. a week was content to inhabit a miserable one-roomed dwelling in a bad neighbourhood, the one room serving as parlour, kitchen, and sleeping-room for the whole family, which consisted of husband, wife, four sons, two cats, and a dog. The witness was asked: Do you think this family was unable to get better lodgings, or were they careless? They were careless, was the reply. In 1866, Smiles became president of the National Provident Institution but left in 1871, after suffering a debilitating stroke. He recovered from the stroke, eventually learning to read and write again. In 1875, his book Thrift was published. In it, he said that riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.