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Billionaire Bill Gates recently retired from Microsoft to embark on a new career as a full-time philanthropist. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already pledged billions of dollars to good causes, such as the fight against poverty and disease in the Third World.
Yet, in aiming to distribute his wealth to help those most in need, Gates is following in the footsteps of a Great Scot – Andrew Carnegie – who was, at the turn of the 20th century, dubbed ‘the richest man in the world’.
Although Carnegie made his fortune as an iron and steel magnate in the US, he was not – as Chris Evans recently mistakenly believed on his Radio 2 show – American. Nor, despite his love of the land of the free, did he ever technically become a US citizen, although his wealth and influence were such that no one openly challenged his claims to be so.
Carnegie’s background is a classic rags-to-riches tale. He was born in Dunfermline, in 1835, the son of a weaver. Due to financial hardship, his family emigrated to America when the lad was only 12, where Andrew’s first job was as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill in Pittsburgh. Yet, determined not to spend the rest of his days in poverty, he made the most of the land of opportunity.
Carnegie worked his way up from telegraph messenger, railroad developer (where he invested wisely in the innovative sleeping carriage), bridge builder and oil baron to become, by 1901, the Steel King of America. When he retired at the age of 65, he sold his business for $480 million and, by the time he died in 1919, had distributed over $350 million in public benefactions, including scientific research, public libraries and education.
In this month's issue Alan Cochrane writes about new penalties for wildlife crimes. Do you think it would be fair to ban keepers for life for certain wildlife crimes?
