Morton Peto

Sir Samuel Morton Peto, Bt
Historical photo of Morton Peto
Born	4 August 1809 Woking, Surrey, England
Died	13 November 1889(1889-11-13) (aged 80)
Nationality	English
Occupation	Civil engineering contractor
Spouse(s)	Mary Grissell (four children) Sarah Ainsworth Kelsall (11 children)
Children	15

Sir Samuel Morton Peto, 1st Baronet (4 August 1809 – 13 November 1889) was an English entrepreneur, civil engineer and railway developer, and, for more than 20 years, a Member of Parliament. A partner in the firm of Grissell and Peto, he managed construction firms that built many major buildings and monuments in London, including The Reform Club, The Lyceum, Nelson's Column and the new Houses of Parliament; which made him a millionaire. As a partner in Peto and Betts, he then became one of the major contractors in the building of the rapidly expanding railways of the time.

Samuel Morton Peto, normally called Morton Peto, was born on 4 August 1809, in Woking, Surrey. As a youth, he was apprenticed as a bricklayer to his uncle Henry Peto, who ran a building firm in London.

When his uncle died in 1830, Peto and his older cousin, Thomas Grissell (who had been a partner to his uncle for five years), went into partnership. The firm of Grissell and Peto (1830–1847) built many well-known buildings in London, including the Reform Club, the Oxford & Cambridge Club, the Lyceum, St James's Theatre and Hungerford Market at Charing Cross. In addition, they built Nelson's Column (1843) and the vast infrastructure project of the London brick sewer.

Another project, in 1848, was the Bloomsbury Baptist Chapel, the first Baptist church with spires in London. Tradition has it that the Crown Commissioner was reluctant to lease the land to nonconformists because of their "dull, spire-less architecture". Peto is said to have exclaimed, "A spire, my Lord? We shall have two!" The church had twin spires until 1951, when they were removed as unsafe.