Frances Samuel (1818-c. 1898) was a member of one of early Sydney's most significant Jewish settler families. Frances, known as Fanny, came to Sydney in 1832 with her widowed mother Lydia (née Lyons, 1783-1865); and younger brother Saul (1820-1900). Lydia Samuel had come to the colony on the recommendation of her brothers Samuel (1791-1851) and Saul Lyons (1799-1878), both of whom had established businesses in Sydney in the 1820s. Saul Lyons had come to Sydney a free settler and at the time of Frances's arrival was in partnership with her eldest brother Lewis in a pub on Pitt Street. Samuel Lyons came to Australia a convict but as a free man amassed a fortune with various mercantile, property and banking ventures. Frances's brothers also came to prominence as businessmen and landowners. Saul (later Sir Saul Samuel) was, among other distinctions, the first Jewish man to be appointed a magistrate; the first Jewish man elected to the NSW Parliament; and a key figure in the establishment of Sydney's Great Synagogue. Although references to the women of the family are rare, it appears that Frances and her mother lived in premises next door to Lyons's Pitt Street business, where they enjoyed the style of existence typical of genteel women in Sydney at the time.
