Sir John Morden, 1st Baronet

Sir John Morden, 1st Baronet (13 August 1623 – 6 September 1708) was a successful English merchant and philanthropist who also served briefly as an MP.

He established Morden College in Blackheath, south-east London as a home for retired merchants; as a charity, it continues to provide residential care over 300 years later.

It is said that, having decided to return to England, Morden loaded his complete fortune into three ships, none of which arrived at the expected time, prompting his deep despair.

In 1695, after serving two years as Treasurer of Bromley College, a home for clergy widows, he resigned to establish, with his wife Susan – at a cost of £10,000 – his own hospice or almshouse for 'poor Merchants...and such as have lost their Estates by accidents, dangers and perils of the seas or by any other accidents ways or means in their honest endeavours to get their living by means of Merchandizing'.

Morden College was built (to a design sometimes attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, but largely carried out by Edward Strong, his master mason) on the north-east corner of the Wricklemarsh estate and was intended to house 40 single or widowed men.