Who Founded Shell?

Marcus Samuel (1853-1927), later 1st Viscount Bearsted, built Shell's British side. With his brother Samuel Samuel he commissioned the Murex, which in 1892 became the first bulk oil tanker cleared to pass through the Suez Canal, letting the brothers sell Russian kerosene in Asia at prices that challenged Standard Oil. He founded The Shell Transport and Trading Company in 1897, agreed the 1907 combination with Royal Dutch, and served as Lord Mayor of London in 1902-1903. Marcus Samuel was born in 1853.

Henri Deterding (1866-1939) became head of Royal Dutch Petroleum in 1900, a decade after the company was founded to develop oil in Sumatra. He negotiated the 1907 combination with Shell Transport and Trading, which gave the Dutch side 60% and the British side 40% of the group, and led Royal Dutch Shell until 1936. He is usually credited as a co-architect of the group rather than the founder of Royal Dutch itself.

Henri Wilhelm August Deterding was born on April 19, 1866 and died on February 4, 1939. He was general manager of Royal Dutch for 36 years, from 1900 to 1936, succeeding Jean Baptiste August Kessler. In 1920 he was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for supplying the Allies with petroleum during the First World War. Henri Deterding was born in 1866.