Henry Clews was a British-American financier and author.
Early life
Clews was born on August 14, 1834, in Staffordshire, England. He was the youngest of four sons born to Elizabeth "Bessie" Clews and James Clews, a prosperous manufacturer of Staffordshire ware. At age 14, while in training for the Anglican Church, Clews traveled to New York City, where he "began to perceive the possibilities that presented themselves to a young man."
Career
Shortly thereafter, Clews emigrated to the United States in 1853. His first job was at a pottery import business, working as a junior clerk for Wilson G. Hunt & Company. He organized the firm of Stout, Clews & Mason and eventually brought his brother James Clews over from England to help him manage a branch of the brokerage firm. In 1859, he co-founded Livermore, Clews, and Company, what was then the second largest marketer of federal bonds during the United States Civil War. In 1877, he split away and started Henry Clews & Company, a member of the New York Stock Exchange, which made him enormously wealthy. In an 1886 article in The New York Times, his firm was referred to thusly:
"They have called together a staff of assistants who for ability and character are unsurpassed, and from the senior member down to the lowest clerk they are one and all actuated by the same idea, and are untiring in their efforts to further the interest of the patrons and also that of the firm itself. The value of this co-operation on the part of employes will be readily understood when it is taken into consideration that the present business of this firm aggregates thousands of millions of dollars annually, including a general banking business and the execution of orders on the New-York Stock Exchange, New-York Produce Exchange, New-York Petroleum Exchange, and the Chicago Board of Trade, with all of which concerns this house is connected by membership, but which also necessitates the employment of a large number of brokers to aid them in their large commission business."
In politics, Clews was a Republican and organized the "Committee of 70," which deposed the corrupt ring associated with William M. Tweed in New York City. He was a friend of President Abraham Lincoln and served as an economic consultant to President Ulysses Grant. Clews, in regards to Grant & Ward, Grant's brokerage firm with Ferdinand Ward, was quoted as saying "It is marvelous how the idea of large profits when presented to the mind in a plausible light has the effect of stifling suspicion." Towards the end of his life he wrote one of the most famous classics about life on Wall Street entitled "Fifty Years in Wall Street". His nephew, James Blanchard Clews, succeeded as senior member of Henry Clews & Co. after the death of Clews in 1923.
Henry Clews Jr., an artist who married divorced New York socialite Louise Hollingsworth Gebhard in 1901. They also divorced and in 1914 he married Elsie "Marie" Goelet, the first wife of Robert Wilson Goelet. They lived at the Château de la Napoule in France.
