Elihu Yale

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Elihu Yale bigraphy, stories - Welsh merchant and philanthropist

Elihu Yale : biography

April 5, 1649 – July 8, 1721

Elihu Yale (April 5, 1649 – July 8, 1721) was a British merchant and philanthropist, governor of the East India Company settlement at Madras and a benefactor of the Collegiate School of Connecticut, which in 1718 was named Yale College in his honor.

Life

Born to David Yale (1613-1690) and Ursula, he was the grandson of Ann Lloyd (1591–1659), who after the death of her first husband, Thomas Yale (1587–1619) in Chester, Cheshire, England, married Governor Theophilus Eaton (1590–1658) of New Haven Colony.

Yale’s ancestry can be traced back to the family estate at Plas yn Iâl near the village of Llandegla, Denbighshire, Wales.Henry Davidson Love Mittal Publications The name Yale is the English spelling of the Welsh place name, Iâl.

For 20 years, Yale was part of the British East India Company, and he became the second governor of a settlement at Madras (now Chennai), India, in 1687, after Streynsham Master. He was instrumental in the development of the Government General Hospital, housed at Fort St. George. Yale amassed a fortune in his lifetime, largely through secret contracts with Madras merchants, against the East India Company’s directive. By 1692, Elihu Yale’s repeated flouting of East India Company regulations and growing embarrassment at his illegal profiteering resulted in his being relieved of the post of governor. Yale returned to London in 1699, and resided at Plas Grono, near Wrexham, a mansion bought by his father. Having amassed considerable wealth, Yale spent it liberally in England.

In 1718, Cotton Mather contacted Yale and asked for his help. Mather represented a small institution of learning that had been founded as the Collegiate School of Connecticut in 1701, and it needed money for a new building in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale sent Mather a carton of goods that the school subsequently sold, earning them £800 pounds sterling, a substantial sum in the early 18th century. In gratitude, officials named the new building Yale; eventually the entire institution became Yale College.

Cultural references

  • Elihu later became the name of a "senior society" founded in 1903 at Yale.
  • Tom Wolfe, who earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale, named the African-American Atlanta police chief in A Man in Full Elihu Yale.
  • Yale College, a college in Wrexham, is also named after Elihu Yale.
  • Elihu Yale is the name given to a JD Wetherspoons Public House in the town of Wrexham.
  • Theodore Roosevelt’s son Quentin kept a Hyacinth macaw named Eli Yale.
  • A Yale University student or alumnus is known informally as either an Eli or a Yalie.

Death and legacy

St. Giles’ Church in Wrexham]] Yale died on July 8, 1721 in London, England, but was buried in the churchyard of the parish church of St. Giles in Wrexham, Wales. His tomb is inscribed with these lines:

Born in America, in Europe bred
In Africa travell’d and in Asia wed
Where long he liv’d and thriv’d; In London dead
Much good, some ill, he did; so hope all’s even
And that his soul thro’ mercy’s gone to Heaven
You that survive and read this tale, take care
For this most certain exit to prepare
Where blest in peace, the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in silent dust.

Wrexham Tower, part of Saybrook College, Yale, is a replica of that of St. Giles’ Church, Wrexham.

In Boston, Massachusetts, a tablet to Yale was erected in 1927 at Scollay Square, near the site of Yale’s birth. Yale president Arthur Twining Hadley penned the inscription, which reads: "On Pemberton Hill, 255 Feet North of This Spot, Was Born on April Fifth 1649 Elihu Yale, Governor of Madras, Whose Permanent Memorial in His Native Land is the College That Bears His Name."

In her article for Atlantic Monthly about Skull and Bones, Alexandra Robbins alleges that the gravestone of Elihu Yale was stolen years ago from its proper setting in Wrexham, and is displayed in a glass case, in a room with purple walls, which belongs to a building called the Tomb of the Skull and Bones at Yale University.