Legacy of Fife-born magnate will live forever

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist and business magnate who led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th Century.

He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and the British Empire.

During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away about $350 million to charities, foundations and universities – a sum that represented almost 90% of his fortune.

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline and emigrated to the US with his parents in 1848, at the age of 12.

He started work as a telegrapher and, by the 1860s, had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges and oil derricks.

Carnegie accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe.

He built Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to JP Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000.

Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education and scientific research.

With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

He died aged 83 1919 and is buried New York. in in