Samuel Swire, Esq.
(1813-1895)
19 May 1862

Volume 6, page 324, sitting number 8166.

Samuel Swire appears on the 1861 census, living at Priory Bank, Sale, in Cheshire. At the time of the census, he was 48 years old, so he was born in or about 1813. He gave Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire as his place of birth. For profession, he gave 'Coal Proprietor, Partner in Colleries and Iron Works.'

In 1871, he and his wife Elizabeth were living at 180 Lord Street, North Meols in West Lancashire. He now described himself as 'late coal proprietor.'

Samuel Swire died, aged 81, on 9 January 1895 at Crown House, Southport, Lancashire. He left an estate valued at £86,164.

According to his obituary in the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (10 January 1895); 'The late Mr Swire was justice of the peace for Lancashire, and also for Southport, having been twice Mayor of that borough. He had been a director of several companies, chief amongst which we may mention the Wigan Coal and Iron Company, from the board of management of which he retired only in March last; the Southport Pavilion and Winter Gardens Company Limited; and the Southport Pier Company, of which he had filled the office of chairman. During the time he was Mayor of Southport, the first sod of the West Lancashire Railway was cut by Mrs S. H. Swire, his daughter-in-law. Up to the introduction of Mr Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, in 1886, Mr Swire had been an ardent and prominent Liberal, but with many others he then found himself unable to support the bulk of the Liberal party in their alliance with the Nationalists, and though thereafter he took little part in political life, his sympathies were with the Unionist cause.'