Samuel Owen

Who was Samuel Owen?

Samuel Owen, was a British-Swedish engineer, inventor and industrialist. Samuel Owen moved to Sweden in 1807 and founded in 1809 a workshop in Stockholm that produced all kinds of mechanical components for the industry.

Family: He was married three times; First in England with Ann Spen Toft, then 1817 in Sweden with Beata Carolina Svedell. Beata died 1822. Soon after he married Johanna Magdalena Elisabeth, also called "Lisette". She was born Strindberg and was an aunt to August Strindberg. In total he had 17 children with his three wives.

His first trip to Sweden was in 1804 to assist with the installation of four steam engines that were ordered from Sweden, intended for industrial use, that had been sold by the company Fenton, Murray & Wood’s in Leeds in England where Owen was employed at that time. The first engine was installed in the autumn 1804 in a textile factory at Lidingö outside Stockholm to replace horses that were used to drive the machines in the factory.