John Harvard

John Harvard (November 26, 1607 – September 14, 1638) was an English minister in America whose deathbed bequest to the Massachusetts Bay Colony's fledgling New College was so gratefully received that the school was renamed Harvard College in his honor. Harvard was born and raised in Southwark, England, the fourth of nine children born to Robert Harvard (1562–1625), a butcher and tavern owner, and his wife Katherine Rogers (1584–1635), a native of Stratford-upon-Avon whose father Thomas Rogers (1540–1611) may have been an associate of Shakespeare's father. He was baptised at what is now Southwark Cathedral and attended St Saviour's Grammar School, where his father was a governor. In 1625 the plague reduced the immediate family to John, a...