page_title: Samuel Smiles
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Smiles
caption_attribution_description: work given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1904. See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG.
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Samuel Smiles (23 December 1812 – 16 April 1904) 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 (1859), 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.
caption: Portrait by Sir George Reid
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