Samuel West Samuel West Samuel Alexander Joseph West (born 19 June 1966) is a third-generation English actor, theatre director and voice actor. He has directed on stage and radio, and worked as an actor across theatre, film, television and radio. He often appears as reciter with orchestras and performed at the Last Night of the Proms in 2002. He has narrated several documentary series, including five for the BBC centred on events related to the Second World War. West was born in London, the elder son of actors Prunella Scales and Timothy West, and the grandson of the actor Lockwood West. He
Necessity is the mother of invention inuentour of all goodnesse", in his book "Toxophilus". In 1608, George Chapman, in his two-part play "The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron", used a very similar phrase: "The great Mother, Of all productions (graue Necessity)". But, the earliest actual usage of the proverb "Necessity is the mother of invention" is sometimes ascribed to Richard Franck, who used it in his book "Northern Memoirs", calculated for the meridian of Scotland (1658). Commonly misattributed due to Benjamin Jowett's popular idiomatic translation (1871) of "Plato's Republic", Book II, 369c as "The true creator is necessity, who is the mother of