 He was also chairman of the Railway Debenture Trust and the Railway Share Trust

Although often claimed to have been the father of the novelist Mary Eliza Kennard (1850–1936), this is in dispute.However birth entries at the General Register Office for her sons Lionel Edward Kennard and Malcolm Alfred Kennard both have Laing as the mother's maiden name.Furthermore the transcribed parish record entry for her marriage to Edward Kennard on 19 April 1870 at Saint Nicholas church, Brighton gives her name as Mary Eliza Laing, daughter of Samuel Laing.