Kidder, Peabody: New Style

In 1865 there was formed the Boston banking firm of Kidder, Peabody & Co. By the turn of the century it had marched into the foremost rank of private banks. Yet during the last few years sorry things have happened to Kidder, Peabody & Co. In August 1929, William Endicott, who had entered the firm after emerging from Harvard in 1887, resigned. On Jan. 2. 1930, the senior partner, Frank G. Webster, died suddenly at the age of 89. Five days later the mainspring of the firm, Robert Winsor. died. Within a year Wall Street was whispering black news about Kidder, Peabody & Co.

Last week the partnership of Kidder. Peabody & Co. was dissolved. A new partnership of three members was formed to succeed it. New blood will henceforth flow through the firm, but the traditions of Boston and Harvard have not been broken and the name continues to remain the same.

Oldest of the three new partners is Chandler Hovey. In 1900 he went to work for Kidder, Peabody & Co., and in 1910 left to form his own firm. He is closely tied to the firm's tradition, for his sister married Edwin Sibley Webster, son of the late Frank G. Webster and now president of Stone & Webster, Inc. His father was the late William Alfred Hovey, editor of the Boston Transcript. His grandfather was Charles Hovey, fiery Boston abolitionist. Chandler Hovey winters at Chestnut Hill, Boston, points with pride to some large China vases bearing paintings of Napoleon by Artist Jacques Louis David.

Partner Hovey's nephew, Edwin Sibley Webster Jr., 31, was also made a partner. This young man began his career slowly. After graduating from Harvard in 1923 and from Harvard Business School in 1925, he went to work for his father in Stone & Webster, Inc., first on a construction job in Puget Sound, then on a Florida bus line, then with a power company in Virginia. From those occupations he went to Boston to be a messenger boy in the Stone & Webster Building for a while, then entered the legal department of the firm. He was a vice president when he resigned last week to go to Kidder, Peabody. He is also a director of Freeport Texas Co., New England Trust Co., Railway & Light Securities Co. Golfer, fisherman, gunner and rider-to-hounds, he was in Florida last week recovering from brain concussion suffered when he was thrown last October in the Norfolk Hunt (Medfield, Mass.).

A business-school classmate of young Partner Webster was lank Albert H. Gordon. After graduation he went to work for Goldman, Sachs & Co. He was named last week as the third partner of reorganized, revitalized Kidder, Peabody & Co.

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