Who Were They?

 

credit:neilgale199

Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park at Night

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Megan McKinney

 

Buckingham is a name we run into time and time again in studying historic Chicago families, but are we sure just who they were? Let’s start with the most famous dynasty member, Rosalie Buckingham Selfridge. Rose, as she was known, gained TV series fame as wife of London department magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge.  The series, Mr. Selfridge, produced in England, was telecast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States in 2016. 

 

Rosalie Buckingham Selfridge

 

    Frances O’Connor, who portrayed Rose in the television series Mr. Selfridge.

 

Rose, born in 1860, inherited from Buckingham ancestors not only a sense of the importance of owning property but also the means to acquire quite a bit of her own. In her early twenties—long before her marriage to Mr. Selfridge—she was developing land she purchased  around 57th Street in Hyde Park. She engaged George Pullman’s favorite architect Solon Beman to construct the Rosalie Villas, a cluster of elegant houses totaling 42 villas and artists’ cottages. The next time you are shopping for marvelous  bargains in Powell’s Books, look down at your feet; you will be standing on property that once belonged to Rose Buckingham.

 

Powell’s Books, 1501 East 57th Street in Chicago

 

Harry Gordon Selfridge

 

Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge in Mr. Selfridge

 

• And Selfridges main store in Oxford Street, London. 

However, there are those who would disagree that Rose is the most famous  Buckingham. How could she be when we have the Buckingham Fountain in “the center of Grant Park.”?  The glorious Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain was donated to the city of Chicago in 1927 by Kate Sturges Buckingham in honor of her brother. Ms. Buckingham also provided an endowment fund with an initial investment of three hundred thousand dollars to pay for the fountain’s maintenance.  

 

Clarence F. Buckingham

 

 

Latona’s Fountain in the Gardens of Versailles, above, is said to be inspiration for the Buckingham Memorial Fountain.

 

 

Also commissioned by Kate Sturges Buckingham—and created by artist John Angel in 1952—is the statue of Alexander Hamilton, America’s first Secretary of the Treasury, which stands in Lincoln Park.

 

Author Image: Robert F. Carl