William Cameron Forbes

William Cameron Forbes
United States Ambassador to Japan
In office
September 15, 1930 – March 22, 1932
PresidentHerbert Hoover
Preceded byWilliam Castle, Jr.
Succeeded byJoseph Grew
Governor General of the Philippines
In office
November 11, 1909 – September 1, 1913
PresidentWilliam Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Preceded byJames Francis Smith
Succeeded byNewton W. Gilbert (acting)
President of the Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation
In office
1911–1916
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byManuel L. Quezon
Personal details
Born(1870-05-21)May 21, 1870
Milton, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedDecember 24, 1959(1959-12-24) (aged 89)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

William Cameron Forbes (May 21, 1870 – December 24, 1959) was an American investment banker and diplomat. He served as governor-general of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913 and ambassador of the United States to Japan from 1930 to 1932.

He was the son of William Hathaway Forbes, president of the Bell Telephone Company, who was part of the Boston Brahmin family that made its fortune trading in China, and wife Edith Emerson, a daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was grandson of Sarah Hathaway and John Murray Forbes and Lidian Jackson and Ralph Waldo Emerson. After education at the Milton Academy and Boston's Hopkinson School[1] and graduation from Harvard in 1892, he embarked on a business career, eventually becoming a partner in J. M. Forbes and Company.[2]

  1. ^ Spector, Robert Melvin (1985). W. Cameron Forbes and the Hoover Commissions to Haiti, 1930. University Press of America. p. 51. ISBN 9780819139757.
  2. ^ "W. Cameron Forbes for Envoy to Japan; Bostonian Selected by President Hoover to Succeed W.R. Castle Jr.; Forbes was in Philippines; Served There as Vice Governor and Governor General Under Roosevelt and Taft," New York Times. June 3, 1930.