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George William Childs

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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GEORGE WILLIAM CHILDS (1829-1894), American publisher, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 12th of May 1829. He was educated in the public schools, and after a brief term of service in the navy, he became in 1843 a clerk in a book-shop at Philadelphia. There, in 1847, he established an independent book-shop, and two years later organized the publishing house of Childs & Peterson. In 1864, with Anthony J. Drexel, he purchased the Public Ledger, at that time a little known newspaper; he completely changed its policy and methods, and made it one of the most influential journals in the country. He died at Philadelphia on the 3rd of February 1894. Childs was widely known for his public spirit and philanthropy. In addition to numerous private benefactions in educational and charitable fields, he erected memorial windows to William Cowper and George Herbert in Westminster Abbey (1877), and to Milton in St Margaret's, Westminster (1888), a monument to Leigh Hunt at Kensal Green, a Shakespeare memorial fountain at Stratfordon-Avon (1887), and monuments to Edgar Allan Poe and to Richard A. Proctor. He gave Woodland Cemetery to the Typographical Society of Philadelphia for a printers' burialground, and with Anthony J. Drexel founded in 1892 a home for Union printers at Colorado Springs, Colorado.

His Recollections were published at Philadelphia in 1890.