William Wallace Spence


William Wallace Spence 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.

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.

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