Charles Steele (lawyer)

Charles Steele (May 5, 1857 – August 5, 1939) was an American lawyer and philanthropist who was a member of J.P. Morgan & Co. for 39 years.

Ambassador to Italy and U.S. Attorney General John Nelson and his great-grandfather was Revolutionary War Brig.

[7] After his graduation from Columbia, he was admitted to the bar in New York on motion of Theodore William Dwight.

[8] In 1900, Coster died and J. Pierpont Morgan invited Steele, during Coster's funeral,[9] to become a partner in J.P. Morgan & Co. Steele then "played an important but unpublicized part in the affairs of the firm until 1934, when, because of his age, he gave up active participation.

[8] Steele, who became a close friend of Morgan,[10] served on the corporate boards of the International Mercantile Marine Co., the U.S. Steel Corporation, the Southern Railroad Company, the International Harvester Company, Cerro de Pasco, and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad.

[3] Steele was noted for his generous philanthropy both during his lifetime, and after his death which totaled $5,000,000 (equivalent to $109,521,531 today).

[3] A lover of music and former pupil of Dr. T. Tertius Noble, he gave $100,000 (equivalent to $1,820,278 today) in 1922 to St. Thomas' Church for the purchase of buildings for a permanent choir school, today known as the Saint Thomas Choir School, which was founded in 1919.