CHILDS, GEORGE WILLIAM American publisher, was born in Baltimore (Md.), on May 12, 1829. In 1847 he established a book-shop in Philadelphia, and two years later organized the publishing house of Childs and Peterson. In 1864, with Anthony J. Drexel, he purchased the Public Ledger. He died at Philadelphia, Feb. 3, 1894. Childs was known for his public spirit and philanthropy. He erected memorial windows to William Cowper and George Herbert in Westminster Abbey (1877), and to Milton in St. Margaret's, Westminster (1888), a monument to Leigh Hunt at Kensal Green, to Shakespeare a memorial fountain at Stratford-on-Avon (1887), and monuments to Edgar Allan Poe and to Richard A. Proctor. He gave Wood land Cemetery to the Typographical Society of Philadelphia for a printers' burial-ground, and with Anthony J. Drexel founded in 1892 a home for union printers at Colorado Springs, Colorado.
His Recollections were published in Philadelphia in 1890.