MILLIONAIRE ENDS LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21133, 16 March 1932, Page 11

MILLIONAIRE ENDS LIFE.

MR. GEORGE EASTMAN. SHOOTS HIMSELF IN BED. GENIUS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. GENEROUS PHILANTHROPIST. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. NEW YORK. March 14. Mr. George Eastman, aged 77, multimillionaire industrialist., inventor of the Kodak camera and philanthropist, ended his life by shooting himself to-day at his home at Rochester, New York State. Mr. Eastman was known all over the world as the genius of (lie photographic industry. He was an art collector and a big-game hunter. His benefactions at the time of his death exceeded £15.000,000. Dr. Audleyd Stewart announced that Mr. Eastman had shot himself after sending all attendants away from his bedside. Ho had left a note saying: "To my friends. My work is done. Why wait ?"

Dr. Stewart, who had been Mr. Eastman's personal physician for many years, said that although the millionaire had been in ill-health for many years, apparently ho had recovered to a degree which was encouraging to his friends. However, it appeared that Mr. Eastman was in such a mental state that bo shot himself after sending his friends from the room. A moment after they had left they heard a shot and returned to find him dead.

Mr. George Eastman was born at Waterville, New York, in July, 1854. When lie was </ght years old his father died. He began life as a clerk and book-keeper nfc the age of 14, first with an insurance broker and then with a savings bank. While helping his mother to maintain the home, he managed to save money and with this he started in business at Rochester, New York, in 1880 as a maker of photographic appliances, one of his mother's boarders named Strong being his partner. Their capital totalled £SOO. From the age of 23 he had been interested in photography, in the days when wet plates were still in use. An article in the British Journal of Photography gave a formula for coating plates with a gelatine emulsion and, starting from this he began to experiment. In 1879 he took out his first patent for dry plates. In 1884 ho patented the transparent roll film and a mechanism to hold it in tho camera, while in 1889 he produced the first perfect transparent flexible film. The Kodak hand and pocket camera was invented in the previous year, the name and slogan " You press the button: wo do the rest," being devised by Mr. Eastman. He kept on impioving the camera and making it more compact. By the invention of the roll film and this camera Mr. Eastman revolutionised photography and greatly increased its vogue among amateurs all over the world. Tho development of the business was attended by many difficulties. The factory was burnt down, money was scarce and it was not easy to get the right kind of materials. But thanks to Mr. Eastman's gifts as an organiser and a salesman the venture made rapid progress. By 1895 it was earning close on £200.000 a year. Then came the cinematograph, whose enormous demand for film opened up now vistas for the Kodak Company. As early as 1913 it was making over 200,000,000 feet a year. By 1929 the profits of the Kodak and its subsidiary concerns had reached the huge figure of £4.500,000.

Mr. Eastman, who never married, lived in a huge house at Rochester. He was a great benefactor. His view was that it was best for a man to dispose of his fortune while ho was still alive so that he might see the good he was doing with it. That being so, lie distributed the bulk of his wealth, his benefactions amounting to about £15,000,000. To Rochester University, for which he provided a theatre, he gave over £5.000,000, including £1,100,000 for a medical school, while £2,400,000 was devoted to tho foundation and endowment, of tho Eastman School of Music. Tho Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes for Negroes received £3,100,000 and iiie Boston Institute of Technology £2,000,000. In 1917 ho established a denial clinic at Rochester, and in 1927 he presented £300,000 to the Royal Free Hospital, London, for a dental, tonsil and adenoid clinic, a condition being that funds should be provided to maintain it. Koine received a gift for a similar purpose. In May, 1029, he gave £40.000 to -Oxford University for (he salary and expenses of an Eastman Visiting Professorship, (o 1> R hold by an American, increasing the amount to £60.000 in 1930.

When Mr. Eastman reached the ago of 70, lie retired from the presidency of the, Kodak Company and parted with Iho bulk of the shares lie held in it to his employees and In charities. lie, was a, cultured man, devoted to music and pictures and fond of beautiful gardens and line, buildings. Field sports and travel were his recreations.