William Thompson Walters

William Thompson Walters (May 23, 1820 – November 22, 1894) He was the son of the Scotch-Irish banker Henry Walters.

Walters studied civil engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1841, he moved to Baltimore, where he worked as a grain merchant and, in 1847, became a liquor wholesaler by establishing the importing firm of William T. Walters & Co.

After the end of the war, he returned to the United States, where he invested in banking and railroads, founding the Atlantic Coast Line.

In addition to contemporary European work, Walters began to collect Asian art and ceramics. His private collection became one of the largest and most valuable in the United States.

At his death in 1894, Walters had bequeathed his estate, estimated at $10,000,000, to his children. His collection was left to his son Henry Walters, who had also been collecting art. He added to it greatly, and founded the Walters Gallery (now the Walters Art Museum) in Baltimore at Mount Vernon Square. He donated this to the city of Baltimore at his death in 1931 for the benefit of the public.

Personal life

In 1846, Walters married Ellen Harper (1822–1862), daughter of a prosperous Philadelphia merchant. Together, they were the parents of two children that survived to adulthood, a son and daughter:

Henry Walters (1848–1931), who married Sarah Wharton Green (1859–1943), the widow of Pembroke Jones, in 1922. Jennie Walters (1853–1922), who married Warren Delano (1852–1920), a son of Warren Delano Jr. and a brother of Frederic Adrian Delano and Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt, in 1876.

Ellen died young of pneumonia, contracted when they were traveling in England, in 1862. Walters lived another thirty-two years until his death on November 22, 1894, at his home on Mount Vernon Place in Baltimore. He was buried at Green Mount Cemetery, also in Baltimore.

Works Among his writings are: Barye (1885) Notes Upon Certain Masters of the 19th Century (1886)