Leopold Schuster (1791 – 27 February 1871) was a German-born British cotton trader turned

merchant banker A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodi ...

, best known as the Chairman of the

London and Brighton Railway The London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in England which was incorporated in 1837 and survived until 1846. Its railway ran from a junction with the London and Croydon Railway (L&CR) at Norwood – which gives it access fro ...

and then the

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR; known also as the Brighton line, the Brighton Railway or the Brighton) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its ...

, and part of the consortia which bought

The Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around th ...

Early career

The son of a

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

merchant, he moved to England in 1808, and in 1820 formed the trading company Leo Schuster, Brothers & Co., cotton merchants based in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, Bradford and

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

. Like many

German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

in Northwest England at the time, he converted to

Unitarianism Unitarianism (from Latin ''unitas'' "unity, oneness", from ''unus'' "one") is a nontrinitarian branch of Christian theology. Most other branches of Christianity and the major Churches accept the doctrine of the Trinity which states that there i ...

Merchant banker

In 1855 he moved to London, and formed the merchant bank ''Schuster Sons & Co.'' in

Cannon Street Cannon Street is a road in the City of London, the historic nucleus of London and its modern financial centre. It runs roughly parallel with the River Thames, about north of it, in the south of the City. It is the site of the ancient London ...

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. Through this he became involved in financing various railway ventures, and was Chairman of the

. As chairman he negotiated the tripartite merger to form the new

, which he became Deputy Chairman of to his friend Samuel Laing.

Chairman, LB&SCR

After Laing retired at the end of 1855 to pursue a political career, Schuster replaced him as chairman of the LB&SCR, instituting a policy of rapidly expanding new routes throughout South London, Sussex, and

East Surrey East Surrey is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Claire Coutinho, a Conservative. The seat covers an affluent area in the English county of Surrey. Since its creation in 1918, East Surrey has ...

. Some of these routes were financed and built by the company itself, while others were built by independent local companies, set up with the intention of connecting their town to the growing railway network, and with the intention of sale or lease to the LB&SCR. Schuster accelerated the speed of mileage increase after appointing

Frederick Banister Frederick Dale Banister MICE (15 March 1823 – 22 December 1897), was an English civil engineer, best known for his 35 years as the Chief Engineer of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR). Early life Born in London on 15 Marc ...

as the new Chief Engineer in 1860. Resultantly, between 1857 and 1865 a further were constructed or authorised. The growth of the LB&SCR came to a halt in 1866 with the collapse of London bankers

Overend, Gurney and Company Overend, Gurney & Company was a London wholesale discount bank, known as "the bankers' bank", which collapsed in 1866 owing about £11 million, equivalent to £ million in . The collapse of the institution triggered a banking panic. History Ear ...

. The subsequent UK financial crisis the following year brought the railway to the brink of bankruptcy. A special meeting of shareholders was adjourned, and the powers of the Board of Directors were suspended pending receipt of a report into the financial affairs of the company and its prospects. The report made clear that the railway had over-extended itself with large capital projects sustained by profits from its passenger traffic, which suddenly declined as a result of the crisis. Several of the country lines were losing money, and resultantly in restructuring the company Schuster was forced to resign in favour of new chairman Peter Northall Lawrie.

Crystal Palace

In the 1850s, Schuster and Laing were both members of a consortium of eight men who bought

and relocated the building to south London at

Sydenham Hill Sydenham Hill forms part of a longer ridge and is an affluent locality in southeast London. It is also the name of a road which runs along the northeastern part of the ridge, demarcating the London Boroughs of Southwark, Bromley, and Lewisham ...

. The consortium persuaded the board of the LB&SCR to build a new railway station to service the new location and it opened in 1854.

Personal life

By his first wife, Emilie, he had a son and a daughter. His elder son Samuel Leo Schuster (11 May 1830 – 23 December 1884)ALFRED PARSONS, Deceased.--Pursuant to. ''The Times'', Wednesday, 25 Feb 1885; pg. 3; Issue 31379 married the eldest daughter of the 5th Earl of Orkney, while his daughter Mariana Emily Schuster married baronet Sir William Dickason Clay and after Clay's death married senior civil servant

Arthur Haliburton, 1st Baron Haliburton Arthur Lawrence Haliburton, 1st Baron Haliburton (26 December 1832 – 21 April 1907) was a Canadian-born British civil servant. He was the first native Canadian to be raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Early life Haliburton w ...

. By his second marriage to Mary Howard in 1845 he had two more daughters and a second son, Leo Francis Howard Schuster (1852-1927), a music-lover and patron of the arts. He was also the uncle of Sir Felix Schuster, banker and financier, and Sir Francis Schuster. On his death, his estate was valued at over £500,000, making him one of the most successful merchants of his time.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schuster, Leo 18th-century German Jews German emigrants to the United Kingdom English bankers London, Brighton and South Coast Railway people Converts to Unitarianism English Unitarians 1791 births 1871 deaths 19th-century English businesspeople