A life of philanthropy

I met Dame Jillian Sackler today, Brit wife of the American Arthur M Sackler who, along with his brothers Raymond and Mortimer, were all multi-millionaire physicians and philanthropists. There is of course the Sackler gallery at the Royal Academy in London. Arthur was very interested in China and donated a large sum of money to build a Museum of Art & Archaeology at Beijing University. He died in 1987, a few years before it was finished, but Dame Jillian has carried on the project and added an extension and a garden. The Ambassador and I sat listening to her life story, US politics and philanthropy and before we knew it, an hour had passed.