Name William Spence | ||
William Wallace Spence (born 1815 - died 1915) was a Baltimore Financier. He was a founding partner of Spence & Reid, which manufactured clipper ships, established an import/export firm at Pratt Street’s Old Bowley’s Wharf, and founded The Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company.
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Business
Born in Scotland in 1815, William Wallace Spence immigrated to the United States at the age of eighteen with only one-hundred dollars in his pocket. He was employed as a shipping clerk in New York and then came to Baltimore to enter into a business partnership with Andrew Reid, forming the corporation Spence & Reid, which manufactured clipper ships Spence also set up an import/export firm at Pratt Street’s Old Bowley’s Wharf. Later, he founded the Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company and became an officer of The Eutaw Savings Bank.
Civic activity
Spence was a pillar in the Baltimore community. He was the president of the Municipal Art Society, active in the formation of the First Presbyterian Church, and a prominent contributor to Johns Hopkins University and Hospital. He is best known for erecting a thirteen-foot, iron statue of William Wallace, the Scottish martyr, in 1893 in Druid Hill Park and donating a copy of Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Christus Consolator to Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1896.