In the old days, one of the perks of being a major-league philanthropist was the satisfaction of having a statue erected in your honour. Take George Peabody, the 19th-century American merchant who moved to Britain and developed a penchant for building social housing all over London. Like his Peabody estates, he is still with us today; his seated figure was allotted a prime piece of real estate opposite what was until recently the site of the London Stock Exchange in Threadneedle Street, prompting his biographer to remark that he occupied "the most costly chair in the British Empire".

Thus did mere businessmen enter the ranks of great leaders, warriors, philosophers and poets, achieving immortality in an effigy.