The Biographical Dictionary of America/Auchmuty, Richard Tylden

AUCHMUTY, Richard Tylden (ok-mu-te), philanthropist, was born in New York city in 1831. He received a collegiate education, and then studied architecture with James Renwick, with whom he was associated as a partner for many years. He served with distinction through the civil war, and soon afterwards retired from his architectural profession, and devoted himself to the development of Lenox, in Berkshire county, Mass., as a summer resort for people of means and leisure. As a philanthropist he undertook to cope with the labor problem. He saw the inevitable result of the monopoly which foreign skilled labor was establishing in certain trades, and he quietly set about applying a remedy. In 1881, in connection with his wife, he established a training school in New York city, where indigent young men are given instruction in certain branches of industry — such as plastering, plumbing, tailoring, blacksmithing, carpentry, and house, sign and fresco painting. The school was liberally endowed by Mr. Auchmuty and his wife, at its opening, and when incorporated in 1889, it received from them an additional benefaction of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, to which J. Pierpont Morgan afterwards added the gift of five hundred thousand dollars. The institution was established on a very modest basis, its avowed object being "to enable young men to learn the science and practice of certain trades thoroughly, expeditiously, and economically, speed of execution to be acquired at real work after leaving the school." During the first year, thirty pupils received instruction, but the fame of the institution, still in its experimental stage, spread so rapidly that the roll for the second year included ninety-eight names, while that for the third year rose to 207. Colonel Auchmuty's experiment was a practical success at the end of the third year. The annual list of graduates numbers about six hundred, and the plan of the school was largely copied. He died at Lenox, Mass., July 18, 1893.