Publically, Sir John Templeton was a skilled investor and stock broker; privately, he was a ceaselessly curious individual who explored questions of science and faith with gusto.

Early Life

Born in 1912, John Marks Templeton was the son of a lawyer and cotton merchant and raised in the small town of Winchester, Tennessee as a strict Presbyterian. He went on to Yale University. Even at that age, he showed aptitude for capitalizing on financial opportunities, albeit at the cost of his fellow peers: he was rumored to have paid for at least part of his tuition using money won from playing poker. He went on to attend Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where he earned his Master’s in law.

“The Greatest Global Stock Picker of the Century”

Throughout his life, Templeton developed a reputation as an astute investor and businessman, particularly for his knack for taking advantage of timely opportunities. During the economic depression of the 1930s, Templeton famously borrowed $10,000 to purchase 100 shares from every company listed on the New York stock exchange that was selling for less than $1 (or what today would be equal to $17 a share). For the rest of the world, 1939 was a year marked by fear as Hitler’s troops marched into Poland: the stock value of nearly every company dropped precipitously. Templeton, on the other hand, had not just the courage to go against the tide of uncertainty gripping the entire world, but the foresight to use a dire economic situation to his advantage. Within just a few years, he had made a profit on every company he had purchased stock in but four.

In 1999, Money magazine praised John Templeton as the “greatest global stock picker of the century.” Templeton liked to invest in “common stocks” and government bonds that were predictably stable over time, even if the return was less immediate than some riskier stocks. More than anything, Templeton was skilled in his understanding of timeliness: he knew the optimal time to both buy and sell stocks was nearly always unintuitive and against the popular opinions of the time. His trademark was buying bargain stocks selling for far below their normal value due to a short-term situation, such as an outbreak of war or disaster. He utilized this strategy to make enormous profits from stocks purchased at the onset of World War II and in investments in post-war Japan.

Explorations into “Spiritual Wealth”

Aside from his Wall Street triumphs, John Templeton was known for his inquisitive nature into all facets of life – in particular, questions of how science, religion, and love enriched the human experience. What distinguished him from other individuals exploring the same questions was that he was intent on doing using scientific analysis and research. Even as a life-long Protestant, he remained open-minded in his search for spiritual answers, exploring other religions including Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. Part of Templeton’s legacy has been his work through the John Templeton Foundation, which was established in 1987 to explore questions into religion using scientific methods. Templeton funded the creation of The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love to explore the effect of love on the human condition through scientific research. The organizations that he established during his lifetime speak to his own personal struggle to reconcile science and religion, both for himself and in society.

Templeton was knighted in 1987 for his philanthropic work. His charity work is estimated at over 1 billion dollars in sum. Templeton died of pneumonia on July 8, 2009 at Doctors Hospital in the Nassau, Bahamas.

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