The Queen offered Peabody a knighthood, but he declined, saying, "If Her Majesty write me a personal letter endorsing my desire to help the poor of London, I will be more than delighted." Victoria then wrote the letter, and she also had a picture of herself painted in miniature and gave it to him. The letter and portrait are now in the Peabody Institute at Peabody, Massachusetts.
When Peabody died, in Eighteen Hundred Sixty-nine, Queen Victoria ordered that his body be placed in Westminster Abbey. The Queen in person attended the funeral, the flags on Parliament House were lowered to half-mast, and the body was attended to Westminster Abbey by the Royal Guard. Gladstone was one of the pallbearers.
Later, it was discovered that Peabody had devised in his will that his body should rest by the side of his father and mother, in Harmony Grove, the village cemetery at Danvers, and in a spot over which his boyish feet had trod. The body was then removed from the Abbey and placed on board the British man-of-war "Monarch," in the presence of the Prime Minister, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and many distinguished citizens. The "Monarch" was convoyed to America by a French and an American gunboat. No such honors were ever before paid to the memory of a simple American citizen.
Well did the Reverend Newman Hall say, in his funeral oration: "George Peabody waged a war against want and woe. He created homes; he never desolated one.
"He sided with the friendless and the houseless, and his life was guided by a law of love which none could ever wish to repeal. His was the task of cementing the hearts of Briton and American, pointing both to their duty to God and to humankind."
A. T. STEWART
The merchant of the future will not only be an economist and an industrial leader—he will also be a teacher and a humanitarian.