John Harvard

1607-1638. Benefactor of Harvard University. Born in Southwark, he studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and because of the religious situation in England under Archbishop Laud he joined the Puritan emigration to the New World. He settled in Massachusetts and was admitted a member and teaching elder of the Congregational church at Charlestown; he was also a freeman of the colony. In his will he left half his estate with a library of about 400 volumes to the new college, recently founded by the colony in 1636. The General Court of Massachusetts named the college after him in 1638/39, and with the aid of his legacy buildings were erected.