Background
Robert Fleming was born in 1845 in Dundee. His father was a bookkeeper.
Robert Fleming was born in 1845 in Dundee. His father was a bookkeeper.
By 21, he was Edward Baxter"s private clerk. In time, Fleming had learned enough about investment procedures from Baxter to oversee the firm"s American holdings. Fleming launched the Scottish American Investment Trust in 1873, the first of the Scottish investment trusts.
He went on to become an international financier in London, establishing the investment bank that bore his name for more than a century and out of which the Fleming Collection of Scottish art and the Fleming Collection Gallery was born.
He was one of the shrewdest investors of his generation and an acknowledged expert in the financing of American railroads. He made many generous bequests to the city and the new University College.
The Fleming Gymnasium (opened in 1905 and now housing Forensic Medicine) still bears his name. The Fleming Gardens Estate in Dundee was erected as a result of a gift of £155,000 Fleming made to improve worker"s housing.
His gift is commemorated in a plaque and balustraded viewpoint at the junction of Clepington Road and Hindmarsh Avenue.
He died in 1933.