Sampson Gideon

Sampson Gideon (February 1699 – 17 October 1762) was a British banker and philanthropist active in the City of London during the Georgian era. Gideon is most prominently known for his financing of the Hanoverian-Whig government's suppression of the Jacobite rising of 1745, subsequently becoming a trusted "adviser of the Government" who supported the passage of the Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753. Historian James Picciotto, in his 1875 book Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History described Gideon as the "Rothschild of his day" and the "pillar of state credit". Background Sampson Gideon was born at London Wall in the City of London, second son in five children of Rowland Gideon (né Rohiel Abudiente), who traded in the West Indies, and his second wife Esther de Porto (also Jewish), daughter of Domingo (or Abraham) do Porto, a diamond buyer in Madras, India. Sampson Gideon's paternal grandfather Moses Abudiente was a Sephardi born at Lisbon, Portugal, but moved to Glückstadt at Holstein an area close to Hamburg, where Rowland Gideon was born. The Abudientes (including Rowland and his brother) were active as part of the elite Sephardic planter ruling class in the West Indies, active in the production of sugar cane in first Barbados, Antigua and then Nevis (moving each time to avoid taxation). The Abudientes made their extensive fortune from the sugar cane, worked by the unfree labour of enslaved Africans and European indentured servants on their plantations. After moving to London, Rowland Gideon was admitted to the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers on 17 February 1698 and was likely the first Jewish Freeman of the City of London. He was admitted to the company due to his Barbados trading connections, through the person of Samuel Swynock, one of the Wardens of the Painter-Stainers. Swynock had been close to Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, one of the Sephardic merchants allied to Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads. Indeed, Carvajal founded the Creechuch Lane Synagogue where Sampson Gideon's parents were married by Haham Aylion on 26 December 1693. Rowland Gideon himself was the Treasurer of Bevis Marks Synagogue in the year that it was founded. Sampson's siblings included an unknown half-brother who died at Nevis in 1684, as well as three sisters; Bara Abudiente, Sara Abudiente and Rahel Abudiente.