James Clarke Welling (July 14, 1825 – September 4, 1894) was the President of Columbian University, now the George Washington University, Washington, DC, from 1871 to 1894.Welling, James Clarke. At Historical Encyclopedia, George Washington University site He was a cofounder of the National Geographic Society.Cathy Hunter. James Clarke Welling: A Champion of Education in the Nation's Capital. Posted July 26, 2012 at Newswatch, National Geographic Society web site.
Biography James Clarke Welling was born in Trenton, New Jersey on July 14, 1825. He graduated from Princeton University in 1844. During the Civil War, he wrote for the National Intelligencer.Hagner, A.B. (1894) Memorial of James Clarke Welling. Historical Society of Washington, D.C. p. 47 Welling was a professor at Princeton when in 1871 he accepted the presidency of Columbian College.Kayser, Elmer Louis. 1970. Bricks Without Straw: The Evolution of George Washington University. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. (Online at GWU's Gelman Library) He became the sixth president of the university.
He was one of the ten founders of the Cosmos Club in 1878.Oehser, Paul H. “The Cosmos Club of Washington: A Brief History.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. 60/62 (1960): 250–65. . In 1884, he served as president of the Philosophical Society of Washington.
"The last occasion in which he appeared in public was at the laying of the new cornerstone of the Corcoran Gallery of Art."Hagner, A.B. (1894), p. 50 Welling died at his summer residence in Hartford, Connecticut on September 4, 1894.
References
Other sources Life and Writings of James Clarke Welling Memorial of James Clarke Welling by A. B. Hagner, 1894, published by Historical Society of Washington, D.C. James Clarke Welling, published in The American Anthropologist