Ornamented Casket Presented to Andrew Carnegie

Category

Library Item

Item no

35451

Title

Ornamented casket in which Andrew Carnegie's Burgess ticket was presented to him

Description

Inscription reads: "Presented by the Corporation of Edinburgh along with the Burgess ticket conferring the Freedom of the City. 8 July 1887.
This box is made of oak from the house of Sir Thomas Hope, King's Advocate of Scotland 1626 - 46 who ably held the cause of civil and religious liberty in early covenanting times.
Box manufactured by Marshall & Sons, Goldsmiths to The Queen, 87 George Street Edinburgh

Artist / maker

MacLean, Kevin

Date

2003

Size

15.0 x 19.7 cm

Type

Metal

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

Andrew Carnegie (25.11.1835 - 11.08.1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and one of the most important philanthropists of his era.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848. His first job in the United States was as a factory worker in a bobbin factory. Later on he became a bill logger for the owner of the company. Soon after he became a messenger boy. Eventually he progressed up the ranks of a telegraph company. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which was later merged with Elbert H. Gary's Federal Steel Company and several smaller companies to create U.S. Steel, which he sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million.
With his fortune he devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education and scientific research.
Andrew Carnegie founded the Carnegie UK Trust which was established in 1913.

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Ornamented casket presented to Andrew Carnegie