George Peabody
George Peabody (February 18 1795 – November 4 1869) was an entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded the Peabody Institute. He accumulated great wealth by investing British capital to the United States, especially during the Panic of 1837 and the Panic of 1857. He was one of the first great philanthropists, providing subsidized housing in London and founding and supporting numerous scientific and educational institutions that supported the poor.
Biography
Early life
George Peabody was born in what was then Danvers, Massachusetts (now Peabody, Massachusetts), to a lower-middle class family of Thomas and Judith (Dodge) Peabody. He had a minimal education and at the age of 11 became an apprentice of a grocer in Danvers. He worked as a merchant until 1812 when he went on to serve in the war. There he met Elisha Riggs, who, in 1814, provided financial backing for the wholesale dry goods firm of Peabody, Riggs, and Company. In next few years, the partners opened branches in Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia.
Banking business
In 1816, Peabody moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where he lived for the next 20 years. In 1827 he traveled to London to negotiate the sale of American cotton in Lancashire. Next year, after Riggs’ retirement, he became the company’s senior partner.
Peabody realized the need for the foreign capital in the United States and started a banking business. His firm, George Peabody and Company, specialized in foreign exchange and securities. In 1835, he played important role in arranging a loan for Maryland, which at the time was on the verge of bankruptcy.
In 1836, Peabody became the president of the Eastern Railroad, one of the first successful railroads in New England. In 1837 he settled permanently in London.
Peabody had great sense for business. Following the Panic of 1837, while American securities reached record low and American credit was under attack, his bank bought substantial amounts of depressed securities and provided credits to those who needed. In return, once the normal economic conditions were restored, he made great fortune on bonds. The same tactic was applied again during the Panic of 1857.
His bank entered into a partnership with Junius Morgan, father of J. P. Morgan in 1854.
Philanthropic work
In the mid-19th century Britain was in the peak of industrialization, with thousands of poor and homeless growing at alarming rate. The situation was especially serious in big cities. Having himself the experience of being poor, Peabody started his philanthropic activities. In a letter to his nephew, David Peabody, he said:
- “Deprived, as I was, of the opportunity of obtaining anything more than the most common education, I am well qualified to estimate its value by the disadvantages I labour under in the society in which my business and situation in life frequently throws me, and willingly would I now give twenty times the expense attending a good education could I possess it, but it is now too late for me to learn and I can only do to those that come under by care, as I could have wished circumstances had permitted others to have done by me."[1]
Unlike other philanthropists of the time who used their philanthropic work to promote religious beliefs, Peabody clearly stated that his institutions were not to be used to propagate any particular theology or political stance.
In London, Peabody established the Peabody Donation Fund, which continues to this day, as the Peabody Trust, to provide subsidized housing in London. The first dwellings opened by the Peabody Trust - for the artisans and labouring poor of London - were opened in Commercial Street, Whitechapel in February 1864.
In America, Peabody founded and supported numerous institutions in New England and elsewhere. At the close of the American Civil War, he established the Peabody Education Fund to “encourage the intellectual, moral, and industrial education of the destitute children of the Southern States." He founded in 1857 the Peabody Institute, which was the first academy of music established in the United States. George Peabody is known to have provided benefactions of more than $8 million, most of them in his own lifetime. Among the list are included:
- 1852 The Peabody Institute (now the Peabody Institute Library), Peabody, Mass: $217,000
- 1856 The Peabody Institute, Danvers, Mass: $100,000
- 1857 The Peabody Institute, Baltimore: $1,400,000
- 1862 The Peabody Donation Fund, London: $2,500,000
- 1866 The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
- 1866 The Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University: $150,000
- 1867 The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass: $140,000
- 1867 The Peabody Institute, Georgetown, District of Columbia: $15,000 (today the Peabody Room, Georgetown Branch, DC Public Library).
- 1867 Peabody Education Fund: $2,000,000
Later life
Peabody was made a Freeman of the city of London, the motion being proposed by Charles Reed in recognition of his financial contribution to London's poor. In 1867 Oxford granted him the honorary degree of D.C.L. He refused to accept either a baronetcy or the Grand Cross of the Bath from Queen Victoria.
Peabody never married. He died in London on November 4 1869, aged 74. At the request of the Dean of Westminster and with the approval of the Queen, Peabody was given a temporary burial in Westminster Abbey.
His will provided that he be buried in the town of his birth, Danvers, Massachusetts, and Prime Minister Gladstone arranged for Peabody's remains to be returned to America on HMS Monarch, the newest and largest ship in Her Majesty's Navy. He is buried in Peabody, Massachusetts, at Harmony Grove Cemetery.
Legacy
Peabody is the acknowledged father of modern philanthropy, having established the practice later followed by Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Bill Gates.
The town of South Danvers, Massachusetts changed its name to The City of Peabody, Massachusetts in honor of its favorite son. His birthplace at 205 Washington Street is now the George Peabody House Museum.
Image:Peabody Royal Exchange Statue.jpg A statue of him stands next to the Royal Exchange in the City of London, unveiled in 1869 shortly before his death. There is a similar statue of him next to the Peabody Institute, in Mount Vernon Park, in Baltimore, Maryland.
Peabody is a member of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans located at the Bronx Community College, at the former site of New York University (NYU).
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Chapple, William Dinsmore. 1948. George Peabody. Salem, Mass: Peabody Museum.
- Curry, J. L. M. 1969. A Brief Sketch of George Peabody and a History of the Peabody Education Fund through Thirty Years. New York: Negro Universities Press
- George Peabody. Encyclopedia of World Biography, on <http://www.bookrags.com/>. Retrieved on September 15, 2007, <http://www.bookrags.com/George_Peabody>.
- George Peabody. Peabody Historical Society, on <http://www.peabodyhistorical.org>. Retrieved on September 15, 2007, from <http://www.peabodyhistorical.org/gpeabody.htm>
- Parker, Franklin. 1971. George Peabody: A biography. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN 0826511708
- Parker, Franklin, and Betty Parker. 2002. On the trail of George Peabody (1795-1869). Pleasant Hill, TN: Franklin and Betty Parker.
- Wallis, Teackle S. 1870. Discourse on the Life and Character of George Peabody. Peabody Institute
External links
- Encyclopedia of World Biography on George Peabody – Biography on BookRags.com
- George Peabody – Biography on Peabody Historical Society wbsite
- George Peabody – Biography on Ryohara.net
- George Peabody Museum – Website of the Museum
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