Edward Harkness

Edward Stephen Harkness (January 22, 1874 – January 29, 1940) was an American philanthropist. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, one of three sons to Stephen V. Harkness, a harness-maker who invested with John D. Rockefeller and became the second-largest shareholder in Standard Oil.Fact|date=June 2008 His father died in 1888. Harkness's eldest brother, William, had another mother.

Harkness attended St. Paul's School and Yale University, Class of 1897. Harkness and brothers Charles and William were members of Wolf's Head Society at Yale. [Phelps Association Membership DIrectory, 2006] After being graduated, Edward Harkness married Mary Stillman, daughter of William James Stillman. This family also had been associated with the Rockefellers. Harkness also earned an LL.D from Columbia Law School. His elder brother Charles W. Harkness died in 1916, and in 1917 Anna Harkness, their mother, donated $3,000,000 to Yale University to build "Harkness Quadrangle" in his memory. In 1918 Anna Harkness established the Commonwealth Fund by an initial gift of $10,000,000, and Edward Harkness was made its president.

"Harkness House", a student cooperative in Oberlin College; "St. Salvator's Hall" at the University of St Andrews; "Harkness Chapel" at Connecticut College; "Butler Library" at Columbia University as well as the original portions of the Columbia University Medical Center and the undergraduate dormitories at Brown University, Harvard University, Yale University, and Connecticut College were built through his philanthropy.

He also had a substantial effect upon several New England boarding schools, introducing the revolutionary Harkness table method of instruction, starting with Phillips Exeter Academy, and spreading to St. Paul’s, and The Lawrenceville School.

He established the Harkness Fellowships and founded the Pilgrim Trust in the UK in 1930 with an endowment of just over two million pounds, "prompted by his admiration for what Great Britain had done in the 1914-18 war and, by his ties of affection for the land from which he drew his descent." [Trust Deed, quoted on [http://www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk/ the Pilgrim Trust website] , accessed 4 December 2006.] The current priorities of the trust are preservation, places of worship, and social welfare.

ources

* [http://www.nndb.com/people/542/000127161/ NNDB]

References

External links

* [http://www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk/ The Pilgrim Trust] website
* [http://www.exeter.edu/documents/Exeter_Bulletin/FA06_Men_Behind_the_Plan.pdf Biography] in the [http://www.exeter.edu/news_and_events/news_events_2086.aspx Exeter Bulletin]