John Harvard was an English minister in America who was the founder of Harvard College.
Background
Harvard was born and raised in Southwark, Surrey, England, (now part of London), the fourth of nine children of Robert Harvard (1562-1625), and his wife Katherine Rogers (1584-1635), a native of Stratford-upon-Avon whose father, Thomas Rogers (1540-1611), was an associate of Shakespeare's father (both served on the borough corporation's council). His father owned a butcher shop and the Queen's Head tavern.
Harvard's father and four of his siblings died, however, in the 1625 plague - leaving John, his mother, and a younger brother Thomas. Fifteen months after Harvard's death the widow Katherine married the Reverend Thomas Allen. In July of 1635 Harvard's mother died following a third marriage. His brother Thomas died before May 5, 1637 leaving Harvard with an inheritance. During these years various legal documents including his mother's will, his father-in-law's will, a real estate lease, and a debt document describe Harvard as a 'clerk'. Being the sole survivor of a fairly well-to-do family, made even more prosperous by inheritances from his mother's re-marriages, Harvard could be justly described as a "wealthy citizen" of Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Education
Coming into considerable money from his mother, Harvard was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he earned his B.A. in 1632 and M.A. in 1635 and was subsequently ordained a dissenting minister.
As part of a Puritan migration Harvard and his wife emigrated to America in 1637. Before leaving England, however, he sold four inherited houses with which he purchased a large number of books to be taken to America with him. He and his wife joined the Puritan Church and, by late 1637, Harvard had become a freeman. They soon built or purchased a house in Charlestown. It was most likely a substantial residence as 60 years later it was serving as a parsonage. It is doubtful, however, if Harvard was ever formally ordained to that position.
Two years before Harvard's death the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony appropriated £400 toward a "schoale or colledge" at what was then called Newtowne. In an oral will Harvard, who had inherited considerable sums from his father, mother, and brother, bequeathed to the school £780 - half of his monetary estate - with the remainder to his wife. He also gave his scholar's library comprising some 329 titles. In gratitude, it was subsequently ordered that the College shall be called Harvard College.
On 14 September 1638, Harvard died of tuberculosis and was buried at Charlestown's Phipps Street Burying Ground.
Achievements
Personality
Although John Harvard was certainly an accomplished man he was not a man of great accomplishments.
Connections
In 1636, Harvard married Ann Sadler (1614-1655) of Ringmer, sister of his college classmate John Sadler's, at St Michael the Archangel Church, in the parish of South Malling, Lewes, East Sussex.