Harold Samuel was born in Finchley in north London and educated at Mill Hill Scholl and the College of Estate Management at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Harold Samuel initially trained to be a surveyor. He married Edna Nedas in September 1936 and they went on to have three daughters.
He established himself as an estate agent but in 1944 acquired Land Securities Investment Trust, a small property concern owning three modest properties. which Harold Samuel built up to become the largest commercial property development and investment company in the United Kingdom and one of the largest companies on the London Stock Exchange.. After World War II he focused on securing bomb sites in Plymouth, Exeter, Hull, Coventry and Bristol and redeveloping them.[
He was knighted in 1963 and was created a Life Peer on 3 July 1972 taking the title Baron Samuel of Wych Cross, of Wych Cross in the County of Sussex.
He is often credited with coining the tricolon expression “location, location, location”, but the phrase was already in common use when he was still quite young.
Harold Samuel was an avid art collector. His collection of Dutch paintings, formed for him with the help of the dealer Edward Speelman, was donated to the Mansion House Art Collection by his wife after his death[8] and subsequently displayed at the Barbican and toured the United States while the Mansion House was being renovated. A catalogue of the collection was prepared by Peter C. Sutton and published by Cambridge University Press to accompany the exhibition.
Samuel also became a fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and University College, London.
Family: Harold is the great grandson of Moses Samuel and Harriet Israel, the grandson of Henry Israel Samuel and Fanny Dutch, and the son of Vivian Samuel and Ada Cohen.