Andrew Carnegie

ANDREW Carnegie was the son of a weaver, who emigrated to Pittsburgh, USA, in 1848. He had several jobs before he resigned from the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1865 to found his own company. It became the largest iron and steel works in America. He retired to Skibo Castle in Sutherland, a multimillionaire.

His gifts were in excess of 70 million, and included public libraries throughout Britain and the US, various public buildings, and substantial gifts to Scottish and American universities and the town of Dunfermline.

He wrote his autobiography in 1920, and also Triumphant Democracy (1886), the Gospel of Wealth (1889), and Problems of Today (1908). He died in Lennox, Massachusetts.