Sir John Templeton, Famed Philanthropist, Dies Tuesday at 95

Sir John Templeton, the legendary fund manager and philanthropist, died in a hospital in the Bahamas, according to reports Tuesday.

Templeton was 95 years old. The cause of death was pneumonia.

In 1954, Templeton, set up the Templeton Growth Fund, one of the first mutual funds that invested globally. Templeton Growth Fund is now the world's largest equity fund. Templeton sold Templeton Funds to Franklin Resources in 1992 for $440 million, renaming the company Franklin Templeton.

In 1968, Templeton, who was born in Tennessee, renounced his American citizenship to avoid taxes. He had dual naturalized Bahamian and British citizenship and lived in the Bahamas.

Templeton contributed a sizable amount of his fortune to his foundation, the Templeton Foundation. In 1972, the Templeton Foundation began awarding the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities. The foundation, which is ran by his son John Jr., gives its honorees a financial prize of $1.6 million, the largest single annual financial prize award given to an individual for intellectual merit.

In 1987, he was knighted by Britain's Queen Elizabeth for his philanthropic accomplishments.

Templeton, a devout Presbyterian, was a trustee on the board of Princeton Theological Seminary, the largest Presbyterian seminary, for 42 years and served as its chair for 12 years.

Templeton graduated from Yale University in 1934 with a degree in economics. He was a Rhodes Scholar to Balliol College, University of Oxford from which he graduated with a M.A. degree in law. In 1984 he endowed the Oxford Centre for Management Studies as a full college, Templeton College, of the University of Oxford, having as a focus business and management studies.

Templeton married the former Judith Folk in 1937 and the couple had three children; John, Jr, Anne and Christopher. She died in February 1951. He married Irene Reynolds Butler in 1958. She died in 1993.

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