Worship at the Abbey

Evensong in Thanksgiving for the life of Sir John Templeton

07 May 2009 at 5:00 pm

Evensong at the Abbey on at 5pm on Thursday 7 May 2009 will be in Thanksgiving for the life and work of Sir John Templeton (29 November 1912–8 July 2008). Templeton Prize winners will read the lessons, the Dean of Westminster will preach, and Evensong will be followed by a wreath-laying in the Lady Chapel, to whose restoration Sir John was a significant contributor.

Sir John was an American investment banker who died last year aged 97. In 1982 he gave Westminster Abbey £1½ million for restoration work - the largest single individual donation. 

Born in Tennessee, Sir John settled in the West Indies and became a British citizen in 1968.

In 1987 he founded the John Templeton Foundation which funds work in the natural and human sciences, in philosophy and theology, in research into free-market solutions to poverty, and in support of gifted education. It gives away about $60 million a year in research grants and programs.

Sir John Templeton was knighted that same year for charitable and philanthropic work and is commemorated in the west window of the Henry VII Chapel.