So tall a man
SITTING BACK in his bronze chair out- side the Royal Exchange, the bronze figure of George Peabody commemorates the founder of the Morgan banks as a philan- thropist and benefactor. He has until now been the only American banker (and, I think, the only banker) to have his own monument in London. Now he will be joined in that honour by Michael Von Clemm, polymath, archaeologist, restaura- teur, in Oxford the President of Templeton College and in the international markets that sprang up in London, their greatest impresario. On the Monday before Christ- mas the Governor of the Bank of England will unveil a bronze bas-relief portrait of Michael at Canary Wharf. Turning those dusty and derelict quaysides into a banking centre was his brainchild, or one of them, though I noticed that he kept moving his own office further and further away. The words that evoke him for me are those of Albert Roux, the master chef, describing their first meeting: 'So tall a man I had to raise my eyes to see him.'
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