Constituency : Wick Burghs 1852-7, 1859-60, 1865-8 Orkney and Shetland 1873-85
Samuel was a more considerable figure than those we've previously discussed. The Laing family were Orkney landowners and his grandfather Malcolm had been MP for Orkney and Shetland from 1807-12. His father Samuel had been a party to the electoral pact of 1818 but had frequently threatened to upset the applecart by standing himself as a more enthusiastic supporter of electoral reform.
Samuel was a barrister from Cambridge who entered politics as private secretary to the President of Board of Trade Henry Labouchere from 1839-41. Despite the change to a Tory administration he was appointed to the railway department in 1842 and quickly became an expert on railway matters. This in turn led to him becoming the chairman and managing director of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1847. His success there led on to chairmanship of the Crystal Palace Company in 1852 the same year he became an MP.
In the General Election of 1852 he defeated a fellow Whig James Loch who'd sat for 20 years. He was associated with the "Peace Party " and in 1857 was turned out by Lord John Hay for opposing British intervention in China but regained the seat in 1859. Palmerston made him Financial Secretary to the Treasury but he resigned the post and his seat a year later to become finance minister in India where he pursued a policy of deficit reduction on Palmerston's instructions. He was back to reclaim the seat in 1865 but the Reform issue caused him problems and he was defeated by George Loch in 1868. He returned to Parliament in 1873 this time for Orkney and Shetland in the by-election following the death of Frederick Dundas. His majority over a rival Liberal was just 25 but he held the seat until retiring in 1885.
Laing was a noted member of Lowe's Adullamite faction and an effective opponent of Russell's bill. His involvement was widely seen as a reaction to not being offered a post by Russell. He attempted to persuade his constituents that he opposed it on not having gone far enough but The Scotsman was having none of it saying there was "no excusing or tolerating the same man reappearing before his constituents as a Radical". He later had his amendment to Disraeli's bill setting out the terms of redistribution accepted.
He was also mildly critical of Gladstone's anti-imperialist policies in his tract "England's Foreign Policy"
In the last dozen years of his life Laing became a noted author on the conflicts between science and religion : his Modern Science And Modern Thought (1885) was a popular book. In A Modern Zoroastrian (1887) he posited that Zoroastrianism was more compatible with scientific discoveries than Christianity.
He died aged 86 in 1897 and is buried in Brighton.
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