Samuel Shrimski
Samuel Edward Shrimski was a 19th-century Member of Parliament and then a Member of the Legislative Council from Otago, New Zealand.
Early life
He was born in Poznań, Prussia, where he received his initial education. He went to London in 1847, where he stayed for 12 years. Shrimski emigrated to Melbourne in 1859 and came to New Zealand in 1861. He became a naturalized citizen in 1863. He married Deborah Neumegen at the Dunedin Synagogue on 28 June 1865. She was the niece of Leopold Neumegen, a Jewish schoolmaster.Political career
Shrimski was the government land auctioneer in Oamaru. He unsuccessfully ran for Mayor of Oamaru in 1870, 1871, and 1872, before finally succeeding in 1874. He was defeated in 1875.Shrimski contested the 1876 election in the electorate. Waitaki was first established in the 1870 Electoral Redistribution. For the 1876 election, it became a two-member electorate. Four candidates put their names forward. Steward and Joseph O'Meagher contested the election as abolitionists, while Thomas William Hislop and Shrimski were provincialists. The provincialists won the election by quite some margin, and both became members of parliament for the first time.
Hislop and Shrimski were both confirmed in the, but Hislop resigned on 28 April 1880 "for private reasons". The resulting was won by George Jones, who served alongside Shrimski until 1881.
Shrimski then represented the Oamaru electorate from to 1885, when he resigned. In the 1884 general election, he defeated Viscount Reidhaven.
He was appointed to the Legislative Council on 15 May 1885, one of an unprecedented nine appointments made by the Stout–Vogel Ministry in 1885, which inflated the council's membership to 54. In 1896 he assisted the Wellington Chinese community with a petition protesting their treatment and 'exceptional laws' that had been passed against them, and the proposed increase in the Chinese poll tax from £10 to £100. He remained in the Legislative Council until he died in 1902.
In Oamaru, he was a member of educational and philanthropic institutions. He held the offices of chairman of the educational board of North Otago, treasurer of the hospital board, and vice-president of the Otago branch of the Anglo-Jewish Association.