For Immediate Release                                        CONTACT: Mary O’Connor
October 20, 2001                                                                         860-297-4046
                                                                                               
                                                                                                      Chris Moses
                                                                                                      860-297-4285
Hartford, Conn., Oct. 20, 2001 –Trinity College has received the largest private gift in its 178-year history, a $39 million bequest from the estate of Henry Melville Fuller, class of 1938. Successful Wall Street stockbroker, philanthropist, naval hero, connoisseur and collector, Fuller expressed his thanks to the college that he loved with the unrestricted cash bequest as well as with the gift of his extensive collection of Russian books and artifacts. Fuller’s bequest will be added to the College endowment, establishing the permanent Henry Melville Fuller Fund. Income from the fund will be used in perpetuity for general College purposes, providing the College with the resources to meet some of Trinity’s highest academic priorities and strategic plan initiatives.

Born in 1914 in Manchester, N.H., Fuller received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Trinity in 1938. He continued on to study economics at Magdalene College of Cambridge University just before the outbreak of World War II. Following a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy in the North Atlantic and then the Pacific, he joined the Credit Department of the Chemical Bank in New York. In 1949, he joined the Wall Street firm of Wood Walker & Co., remaining with the firm through its merger with Legg Mason, where he continued to serve as a leading stockbroker until his retirement in 1993. He resided in Manchester, N.H. at the time of his death on August 4, 2001.

            “An unrestricted contribution to the endowment is the finest tribute and most precious gift that can be made to the College,” said Ronald R. Thomas, acting president, in announcing the gift to alumni and trustees at this weekend’s annual Homecoming celebration.  “Henry Fuller’s generosity is not only an expression of his appreciation of his experience at Trinity but of his confidence in the future of the College.  It will have a dramatic impact on the campus and on its students for generations to come.”

            “The Fuller bequest, more than five times larger than any other bequest that we have received and one of the largest bequests nationally gifted to an educational institution in recent years, represents 12 percent of the College endowment at its current market value and presents us with a rare opportunity to accelerate the College’s progress toward realization of its strategic plan,” said Trinity Board Chairman Thomas S. Johnson, noting that a portion of the gift will be used to fulfill an earlier one million dollar pledge by Fuller to support the Trinity College Library and Information Technology Center expansion and enhancement project. “A ringing endorsement of the College’s commitment to academic excellence, this remarkable gift is impressive evidence of the depth of Henry Fuller’s love for his alma mater,” Johnson concluded.

             Fuller served on the executive committee of the Trinity College Alumni Association across a span of some thirty years and in 1968 received the College’s Alumni Medal for Excellence.  He made other significant gifts to the College over the years, including to the Library Fund, the Alumni Fund, and the Friends of Art. A patron and connoisseur of the arts, he established the Fuller Endowment in Fine Arts in 1987 for an annual art history lecture series.

            The estate, valued at approximately $86 million, also made gifts to Manchester Historic Association, Manchester, N.H., Dartmouth Medical School, and the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, N.H., of which he was a trustee.