Other Activities
In 1844 Peto bought Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk. He re-built the hall with contemporary amenities, as well as constructing a school and more houses in the village. He next built similar projects in Lowestoft, also in Suffolk. For many years he was the largest employer of labour in the entire world.
In 1846 Peto became co-treasurer of the Baptist Missionary Society. From 1855 to March 1867, he was sole treasurer, resigning after personal financial difficulties.
Peto served for two decades as a Member of Parliament (MP). He was elected a Liberal Member for Norwich in 1847 to 1854, for Finsbury from 1859 to 1865, and for Bristol from 1865 to 1868. During this time he was one of the most prominent figures in public life. He helped to make a guarantee towards the financing of the Great Exhibition of 1851, backing Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace.
Peto suffered in the financial crisis of 1866, and had to declare bankruptcy. In 1868 he had to give up his seat in Parliament, despite having the support of both Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone. He exiled himself to Budapest and tried to promote railways in Russia and Hungary.
When he returned, he tried to launch a small mineral railway in Cornwall. This failed.
Peto died in obscurity in 1889.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Morton Peto
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“Justice begins with the recognition of the necessity of sharing. The oldest law is that which regulates it, and this is still the most important law today and, as such, has remained the basic concern of all movements which have at heart the community of human activities and of human existence in general.”
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“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
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