Alfred Chester Beatty

Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, who always signed his name A. Chester Beatty, was an American mining magnate, philanthropist and one of the most successful businessmen of his generation, who was given the epithet the "King of Copper" as a reference to his fortune. He became a naturalised British citizen in 1933, knighted in 1954 and made an honorary citizen of Ireland in 1957. He was a collector of African, Asian, European and Middle Eastern manuscripts, rare printed books, prints and objets d'art. Upon his move to Dublin in 1950 he established the Chester Beatty Library on Shrewsbury Road to house his collection; it opened to the public in 1954. The Collections were bequeathed to the Irish people and entrusted to the care of the State in his Irish will. He donated a number of papyrus documents to the British Museum, his second wife's collection of Marie Antoinette's personal furniture to the Louvre and a number of his personal paintings that once hung in the Picture Gallery of his London home to the National Gallery of Ireland. He also founded the Chester Beatty Institute in London which was later renamed the Institute of Cancer Research.