Albert H. Wiggin

Albert H. Wiggin was born in Medfield, Massachusetts, the son of a Unitarian clergyman and descendant of a family that came from England in 1631. He was a banker: and he joined the Chase Bank in 1904 as its youngest vice-president. He became president of it in 1911; and from that time he devoted himself to the interests and management of the Bank. In 1930 it became the largest banking institution in the world.

An achievement of this kind inevitably exacts a high price. Mr. Wiggin paid it. He had to spend his years thinking about money and listening to very dull men express themselves on boards of directors.

But Wiggin himself was not dull. He was a ball of fire. He was excited by what he was doing, and regarded it as important. And he could not have made the biggest bank in the world except he had vision and courage and capacity far out of the ordinary. His estimate of his fellow man was tinged with defeatism; but when the great financial crash came in 1930, he took the lead in expanding loans to enable victims to tide over the situation and to try and bolster public confidence.

He was an exceedingly able administrator. He served as head of the Clearing House Committee which raised $100,000,000 to protect New York City loans in London and Paris in the First World War; and he was State Fuel Administrator in the dreadful winter of 1917–18, when the Hudson froze over. He always seemed to know exactly what he was doing and where the difficulties lay.

In his home in New York he had a wonderful collection of prints, and to this he brought a technical competence and passionate interest that lifted him out of the world of Wall Street and set his feet in a large room.

George W. Martin
1951/1952 Century Association Yearbook