Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Philip Triest SHARPLES
PHILIP SHARPLES, 92, BUSINESSMAN, AVIATION PIONEER AND GOP FIGURE
By Burr Van Atta
Philip T. Sharples, 92, a Main Line industrialist, aviation pioneer and Republican fund-raiser, died Tuesday at his home in Palm Beach, Fla. Until 1974, he lived at Holt Hill on Grays Lane in Haverford. Founder of three national companies and an officer or director of a dozen others, Mr. Sharples had resources on which to draw in funding GOP campaigns. He served as chairman of Pennsylvania's Republican Finance Committee from 1950 through 1953 and from 1960 through 1963. But his influence extended far beyond the state and those two periods.
Joined by men such as Hugh Scott, Dr. Robert L. Johnson and Thomas B. McCabe, he helped launch the drive to draft Dwight D. Eisenhower for the presidency, led a fight to end domination of the state GOP by the boss-controlled Philadelphia City Committee and the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association and was prime mover in winning the gubernatorial nomination for William W. Scranton in 1962.
A member of the state GOP executive committee, for 40 years he worked in the party's areas of power. He supported his enthusiasms with money, making up party deficits out of his own pockets.
The scope of his support surfaced only in financial reports required to be filed by law. In 1962, the state organization reported it owed him $270,000 and in the aftermath of 1968 campaign, he held its IOU for $250,000.
Finding good candidates and convincing them to stand for office constituted no problem, he said in his retirement years. The principal problem faced by the GOP, he said, was " the cleverly maintained myth that the Republican Party is the party of wealth."
Born to a well-to-do Quaker family in West Chester in 1889, he was reared in the business world. His family manufactured cream separators.
He was taught in his youth that public service was expected. That view was reinforced during his years at Swarthmore College. The college later recalled him to its campus to serve on its board of
trustees. Appointed in 1947, he served as vice chairman until 1969, when he was granted emeritus status.
He was the donor of Swarthmore's Sharples Dining Hall, a structure added to the campus during its centennial year in 1964.
He made his start in the business world with a capital investment of $1,500. Carrying his family's cream separator one step further, he founded the Sharples Centrifuges Corp., which became a world leader in the field.
Interested in flight since his boyhood, he had his first experience in lighter-than-aircraft in 1910, soaring with racing balloonist A.T. Atherholt After World War I, he switched to heavier-than-air flight, joining a handful of Philadelphia sportsmen who flew open biplanes of the period. In the mid-1930s, he acquired the pilot's favorite, the Beechcraft Staggerwing. He flew from the Patco Flying Field near Conshohocken, the site where in 1939 he and his brother, Lawrence, and three other Main Line-area flyers formed the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. The association is the world's largest organization representing those in general aviation.
Mr. Sharples founded Sharples Corp., Sharples Chemicals and Sharples Oil Corp. He served as president and chairman of the board of all three. He also served on the board of the Penn Salt Manufacturing Co., which after merger with the Sharples' companies became the Pennwalt Corp.
He served on the boards of directors of a number of companies, including Philadelphia Electric Co., Fidelity Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank, Lehigh Valley Railroad and Pennwalt.
Active in the Religious Society of Friends, he served as president of the Institute for Cancer Research, the organization that provided $2 million to create basic research facilities on the Jeanes Hospital campus in Fox Chase. He was also a director of Lankenau Hospital, the American Cancer Society,
the American-Korean Foundation, the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships, the University Museum, the United Way and the Valley Forge Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Under his leadership, the Valley Forge Council raised $2 million to fund development of the Resica Fall Scout Camp in the Poconos. He formed the Resica Foundation to develop the camp. His dedication to the program earned him wide recognition in scouting. He was presented with the Roger S. Firestone distinguished service award.
Mr. Sharples was active in many clubs, including the Rittenhouse, Fourth Street, Merion Golf and Merion Cricket Clubs, the Pine Valley Golf Club, Gulph Mills Golf Club, Acorn, Cosmopolitan, Sunnybrook Country Club, the Seminole and Everglades Golf Clubs and the Bath & Tennis Club in Florida.
He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Edith Walz Sharples; a daughter, Wynne S. Ballinger; son, Philip P., and seven grandchildren.
Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Merion Friends Meeting House.
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