Plimsoll , Samuel , 1824-1898 , politician and shipping reformer

Samuel Plimsoll was born in Bristol in 1824. He was brought up in northern England. He became a clerk and later a businessman before entering parliament as Liberal MP for Derby in 1868, retaining the seat until 1880. Plimsoll was concerned with the struggles of the poor and with sailors' interests. He spoke out against the common practice of overloading ships with goods and devised the Plimsoll line, marked on ships to show the safe depth at which they may sit in the water. Plimsoll gym shoes, so-called because their outer rubber band is reminiscent of a Plimsoll line, are indirectly named after him.