Measom, Sir George Samuel (1818-1901). Publisher and philanthropist, born in Blackheath, Kent, 3 December 1818, and baptized in St Alfege, Greenwich, 12 July 1819, one of five children of Daniel Measom (b. c.1790), carver and gilder, and Mary Ann, née Coventry. He was educated at a preparatory school in Blackheath. On 27 January 1842, when he married Sarah (1820-1865), daughter of John Hillman, fishmonger, Measom described himself as a tailor. Later in that decade he advertised his services as an engraver. About 1850 Measom took up railway topography. Measom was the author of the Official Railway Guides, the first of which had appeared in 1852 as The Illustrated Guide to the Great Western Railway. The guide to the Great Western was followed in 1853 by The Official Illustrated Guide to the South-Eastern Railway and all its Branches, and every succeeding volume was distinguished as 'official', with the company's arms on the cover and a list of the directors and officers as well as a description of its principal undertakings. The guides came to an end with the 1880s, though they were revised and reissued. Measom continued to publish engravings in his later years, but having achieved a comfortable ease and competence he devoted himself to philanthropic works. He became chairman and for some time treasurer of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and was a promoter of the charity later known as the Battersea Dogs' Home. He was also active in supporting the hospital, later the Royal Marsden, and argued strongly for the use of the title Cancer Hospital at a time, long enduring, when such bluntness was superstitiously shunned. Following the death of his first wife, in 1867 he married Charlotte (d. 1911), daughter of George Simpson. There were no children of either marriage. He was knighted in 1891 and became a justice of the peace for Middlesex. He continued to be active to the end of his life, and under recreations in Who's Who wrote `Never had time'. He died at home, St Margaret's Lodge, Isleworth, Middlesex, 1 March 1901.