Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Spalding, Samuel
SPALDING, SAMUEL (1807–1843), writer on moral philosophy, born in London on 30 May 1807, was son of Thomas Spalding and his wife Ann. The father was the founder of the firm of Spalding & Hodge, wholesale stationers, in Drury Lane, and Samuel became a partner in it. Subsequently he studied for the congregational ministry at Coward College, and graduated B.A. in 1839 and M.A. in May 1840, with especial distinction in mental and moral science, at the London University. Invalided by excessive study, he sought to recruit his health, first in Italy, and then by a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, where he died on 14 Jan. 1843 (Gent. Mag. 1843, i. 557). His only work, ‘The Philosophy of Christian Morals,’ published posthumously in London, 1843, 8vo, is an essay more or less ingenious, but by no means original, being, indeed, merely a development of the eclectic theory of Sir James Mackintosh [q. v.]
[The Philosophy of Christian Morals (Introduction); Chambers's Book of Days, i. 701; Cal. Univ. London, 1844, p. 68; British Quarterly Review, i. 323; Eclectic Review, 4th ser. xvii. 59 et seq.; Congr. Mag. new ser. viii. 601; Scottish Congr. Mag. new ser. iv. 53; Blakey's Hist. of the Philosophy of Mind, iv. 97; Athenæum, 1843, p. 1090; English Cyclopædia.]