The New International Encyclopædia/Lowell, John (philanthropist)

LOWELL, John (1799-1836). An American philanthropist. He was born in Boston, the grandson of Judge John Lowell, was educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, and at Harvard, and spent the years 1816-17 in travel in India and the East. He was then engaged in commerce in Boston until 1831, when he retired from business, and spent the rest of his life in study and travel. He was a man of literary culture, and at his death left a fund of $250,000 to found the famous ‘Lowell Institute’ at Boston, which provides for annual courses of free lectures. Consult Edward Everett, Memoir of John Lowell, Jr. (Boston, 1840).