Another important figure in the Ffestiniog Slate Quarrying era was Samuel Holland the younger (1803-92). His father, Samuel Holland the elder, (1768-1851) was involved in the lead, copper and slate industry in North Wales, and was also a prominent slate merchant for Penrhyn Quarry in the early 1800s. Samuel the son was educated in England and Germany before joining his father’s company as an office boy. At eighteen years old, his father sent him to Blaenau Ffestiniog [in Merionethshire] to take charge of the Rhiwbryfdir Quarry. He subsequently became an important figure in the company. It was his idea to build a railway from Blaenau to Porthmadog, where he set up a Savings Bank in 1845. He was responsible for founding many Book Clubs, elementary schools, as well as the Dr. Williams School for Girls at Dolgellau in 1875. Elected as High Sheriff in 1862, he then represented the county in Parliament as a Liberal from 1870 to 1885. Apart from all this, he was also very interested in farming and reared between fifteen hundred and two thousand sheep on the mountainsides by Rhiwbryfdir. Both farm and quarry prospered. Indeed, as early as 1852 he had installed gaslight underground and had developed slate dressing machines. Elizabeth Gaskell, the Victorian novelist was a cousin to him.