Samuel Backhouse

Samuel Backhouse (1554–1626) was an English merchant and politician.

He was the son of Nicholas Backhouse of Cheapside in Middlesex (now Greater London), an alderman and Sheriff of London, and his wife, Anne, daughter of Thomas Curzon of Croxall in Derbyshire.

He purchased the Swallowfield Park estate in Berkshire from John Lytcott, in 1586. Backhouse served as High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1598 and 1601. He was Member of Parliament for Windsor in 1603 and 1611.

He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Borlase of Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire, and they had four sons and four daughters. The eldest, John, a royalist, was made Knight of the Bath by Charles I, married Flower (Flora) Henshawe and died in 1649. The youngest, who inherited from John, was William Backhouse, the renowned Rosicrucian philosopher, alchemist, and astrologer.

Backhouse's sister, Mary, married Sir William Borlase MP (c.1562–1629) of Medmenham in Buckinghamshire, brother of his wife Elizabeth Borlase. His sister, Sarah, married Nicholas Fuller, the Puritan lawyer and outspoken MP from Crookham in Berkshire. Like their father, Samuel's brother, Rowland, was High Sheriff of the City of London.