Peabody, GEORGE, American merchant and philanthropist, was born at South Danvers, Massachusetts, February 18, 1795. His parents, who were descended from the Paybodys of St Albans, Hertfordshire, were poor, and his only education was received at the district school. At the age of eleven he was placed with a grocer, and at fifteen in a haberdasher's shop in Newburyport. He was manager of a store in Georgetown for a time; in 1814 he became a partner in the dry-goods house of Elisha Riggs in Baltimore, and head-partner of this firm in 1829. In 1827 he first visited England, where he afterwards settled permanently. He established himself in London in 1837 as a merchant and money-broker, and accumulated a large fortune. He invested largely in United States bonds during the civil war; and this, coupled with integrity, industry, and splendid capacity in finance, was the secret of his marvellous success. As one of three commissioners appointed in 1848 by the state of Maryland to obtain the restoration of its credit, he refused all payment, and received a special vote of thanks from the legislature of that state. In 1851 he supplied the sum required to fit up the American department at the Great Exhibition. That same year he started his 4th of July dinners, which were of some account in fostering good feeling between England and America. During his lifetime Peabody gave away in all more than one and a half millions sterling for philanthropic purposes.
Amongst his gifts were 10,000 to the second Grinnell expedition, under Dr Kane; 200,000 to the Peabody Institute, South Danvers (now Peabody); 50,000 to an institute in North Danvers; 1,000,000 to Peabody Institute, Baltimore; 25,000 to Phillips Andover Academy, and 25,000 to Kenyon College; 150,000 to found an institute of archaeology at Harvard, and a like sum for a department of physical science. His two largest gifts were 3,500,000 for the Southern Education Fund, and his contributions towards building industrial homes in London, which in all amounted to £500,000. Recognition of his beneficence was made by the United States government, while the Queen offered him a baronetcy or the Grand Cross of the Bath. He refused these honours, and was asked what he would accept. His reply was: 'A letter from the Queen of England which I may carry across the Atlantic and deposit as a memorial of one of her most faithful sons.' The Queen's letter acknowledged his 'more than princely munificence;' to this she added her portrait, and both were deposited in the Peabody Institute, South Danvers. Peabody testified that his giving was really a triumph over a naturally parsimonious disposition; he lived and dressed plainly. 'The brave, honest, noble-hearted friend of mankind,' as the Hon. R. C. Winthrop called him, died in London, November 4, 1869. The residue of his fortune, amounting to upwards of £1,000,000 sterling, was left to his relatives. After a funeral service in Westminster Abbey his remains were conveyed to America in the English war-ship Monarch, and laid beside those of his mother at South Danvers. There are statues of Peabody in London and Baltimore. In 1889 the London Peabody trustees had eighteen groups of industrial buildings in various parts of the city, their rooms being occupied by 20,000 persons. The net gain from rents and interest was £30,000. See Life by P. A. Hanaford (1882), and Robert Cochrane's Beneficent and Useful Lives (1890).