John Templeton Jr. Has Died

Led the Templeton Foundation after his father died.

John Templeton, Jr., left, congratulates 2004 Templeton Prize winner Dr. George F. R. Ellis, a leading theoretical cosmologist and a professor of applied Mathematics at University of Cape Town, South Africa, at a news conference in New York, Wednesday, March 17, 2004.  The Templeton Prize, valued at $1.4 million, is awarded to an individual for "progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities." (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff)

John Templeton, Jr., left, congratulates 2004 Templeton Prize winner Dr. George F. R. Ellis, a leading theoretical cosmologist and a professor of applied Mathematics at University of Cape Town, South Africa, at a news conference in New York, Wednesday, March 17, 2004. The Templeton Prize, valued at $1.4 million, is awarded to an individual for “progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities.” (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff)kl

John Templeton Jr., who led the John Templeton Foundation after his father’s 2008 death, has died. He passed on Saturday, according to reports.

The New York Times says:

John M. Templeton Jr., a former pediatric surgeon who was president and chairman of the John Templeton Foundation, died on Saturday at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 75.

The foundation, based in West Conshohocken, Pa., announced his death on Tuesday, saying the cause was cancer.

Dr. Templeton retired from medicine in 1995 to manage the foundation and became its top executive after the death, in 2008, of his father, Sir John Templeton, who created the Templeton Fund in 1954 and the foundation in 1987. Under Dr. Templeton, the foundation’s endowment grew to $3.34 billion from $28 million.

The foundation says:

Out of respect for Dr. Templeton, the family withheld the formal announcement until after a ceremony for the Templeton Prize, sponsored by the foundation, which was held on May 18 at the church of the St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

The foundation is perhaps best known for awarding the annual Templeton Prize. Its monetary value of £1.1 million (about $1.7 million or €1.5 million) makes it one of the world’s largest annual awards given to an individual and is set always to exceed the Nobel Prizes. According to the foundation’s website, it honors a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works. The 2015 Prize was awarded to Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, an international network of communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together as peers.

The Wall Street Journal notes:

Dr. Templeton personally contributed to many politically conservative causes. In 2008, he and his wife donated $1 million to a California ballot campaign to bar same-sex marriage, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

He published two books, “Thrift and Generosity: The Joy of Giving,” in 2004, and an autobiography called “A Searcher’s Life,” in 2008. In the former book, Dr. Templeton said a combination of thrift and generosity would lead to happiness.

Dr. Templeton served on various boards, including the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Foreign Policy Research Institute, American Trauma Society and National Bible Association.