Walter Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted

Colonel Walter Horace Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted MC (13 March 1882 – 8 November 1948) was a British peer and former Chairman of the Shell Transport and Trading Company. He was also a prominent art collector, storing many of his pieces at his family home at Upton House in Warwickshire, and a philanthropist. He was a member of the anti-Zionist Jewish Fellowship, which was founded in 1942.

Samuel was the son of Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted and his wife Fanny Elizabeth Samuel. He was born in London, UK and was educated at Eton College before going up to New College, Oxford. Samuel initially pursued a career in the British Army, serving in the Queen's Own West Kent Yeomanry and eventually reaching the rank of Captain. It was during his Army career that he served in the First World War between 1914 and 1918, gaining the Military Cross (MC) and being mentioned in dispatches twice. Lord Bearsted also served in the Second World War, gaining the rank of Colonel with the Intelligence Corps. This was actually a cover for his work with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS aka MI6) and then SOE. As an officer of Section D, SIS from 1939, he was involved first in early attempts to create resistance networks in Scandinavia and was then a key figure in the plans to found a British resistance organisation - the Home Defence Scheme. In the Summer of 1940 he supervised the transfer of part of the SIS intelligence operation to the new Auxiliary Units.

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