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British colonial administrator and namesake of Yale College
the American military officer

Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British American colonial administrator and philanthropist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Yale only lived in America as a child, spending the rest of his life in England, Wales, and India. He became a clerk for the East India Company at Fort St. George (later Madras), and eventually rose to the Presidency of the settlement. He was later removed from the post under charges of corruption for self dealing and required to pay a fine. In 1699 he returned to Britain with a considerable fortune, around £200,000, mostly made by selling diamonds, and spent his time and wealth in philanthropy and art collecting. He is best remembered as the primary benefactor of Yale College (now Yale University), which was named in his honor, following a donation of books, portrait, and textiles under the request of Rev. Cotton Mather, a Harvard graduate. He had no male heir, and no descendants of his have survived past his grandchildren. In the 21st century Yale's connections to slavery in India began to be more closely explored, a process assisted by the digitalisation and online publication of the East India Company's records. In 2020, Yale's president, Peter Salovey, launched the Yale and Slavery Research Project to explore the university's links with slavery and colonialism, including Elihu Yale's central role.

Yale was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to David Yale (1613–1690), a wealthy Boston merchant and attorney to Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, and Ursula Knight; he was the grandson of Ann Yale (born Lloyd), daughter of Bishop George Lloyd. After the death of her first husband, Thomas Yale Sr. (1587–1619), son of Chancellor David Yale, Anne Yale married Theophilus Eaton, ambassador to Denmark. Eaton was the co founder of two of the Thirteen British Colonies, which are represented on the Flag of the United States, mainly through the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the New Haven Colony, and was the brother of Nathaniel Eaton, Harvard's first Headmaster and President designate, at the founding of Harvard in 1636. His son, Samuel Eaton, the uncle of Elihu, was also involved in the foundation of Harvard, being one of the seven founder members of the Harvard Corporation, the governing board and charter that incorporated the college in 1650. It was they, along with Elihu's uncle and aunt, Thomas Yale Jr., and Anne Yale, Jr., who brought the reconstituted Eaton/Yale family to America, while other members of the family stayed in England. Their estates in Wales were Plas yn Yale and Plas Grono, and Elihu's brother was London merchant Thomas Yale, later ambassador to the King of Siam for the East India Company. Elihu's father, David Yale, would later come from London to New Haven Colony with his stepfather, Theophilus Eaton, in 1639. He moved to Boston in 1641 and met and married Elihu Yale's mother, Ursula, in 1643. In 1652, at the age of three, Elihu Yale left New England, as David Yale took his family back to London. While documentation of this period is sparse, a letter suggests that David Yale remained a successful merchant and settled his family in the Hanseatic merchant district "Steelyard Court". In 1662, at the age of thirteen, Elihu Yale entered the private school of William Dugard, but Dugard died a few months after Elihu Yale enrolled. Yale likely lived through the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London.

In 1670, at the age of 21, Yale became a clerk for the East India Company and served an apprenticeship at the company's offices on Leadenhall Street in London. It is possible that Yale had business training in his father's merchant counting house, and his father's connections helped him get the job. The following year in 1671, Yale was one of twenty men chosen as "writers" in India. Yale was bonded for £500 with the help of his father and his brother David. For 20 years Yale served the East India Company, in 1684 becoming the first president of Fort St George, the company's post at Madras (now Chennai), India. He succeeded a number of agents from Sir Andrew Cogan to William Gyfford. Yale was instrumental in the development of the Government General Hospital, housed at Fort St George. Yale also oversaw the acquisition of the strategically important Fort St. David. Yale amassed a personal fortune while working for the company, largely through secret and unauthorised contracts with Madras merchants, against the East India Company's directive.

Yale was re appointed as President of Madras of Fort St George on 26 July 1687. During that year, following a personal dispute with the King of Siam, Yale commanded the Anglo Siamese War against Narai the Great and his chief minister, Constantine Phaulkon, who were working with Louis XIV of France to increase French influence in the region. He sent warships and sought retaliation against Englishmen who changed sides. He then implemented an order which required the English at Fort St George to make all attempts at procurement of the town of Santhome on lease. To this effect, Chinna Venkatadri was sent to negotiate with the local governor on 4 August 1687. The mission was successful and Venkatadri assumed sovereignty over Santhome for a period of three years. Notwithstanding the vehement protests of the Portuguese inhabitants of Santhome, the English gained absolute control over all lands up to St Thomas Mount for a period of three years. In September 1687, the Mughal Emperor Aurangazeb took Golconda after the Siege of Golconda, defeating Sultan Abul Hasan Qutb Shah. The Mughals took the Sultan of Golconda prisoner and annexed the state. The newly designated Mughal Subedar of the province immediately sent a letter to the British authorities at Fort St George demanding that the English at Madras acknowledge the overlordship of the Mughal Emperor. Yale sent a letter to general Mahabat Khan and complied with the ceremonial performances of Prince Muhammad Kam Bakhsh and prime minister Asad Khan. Aurangazeb guaranteed the independence of Madras, but in return demanded that the English supply troops in the event of a war against the Marathas. It was around this time that Yale's three year old son David Yale died and was interred in the Madras cemetery. During Yale's presidency, a plan for setting up a corporation in Madras was conceived by Sir Josiah Child, the Governor of the East India Company, in a letter addressed to the factors at Madras on 28 September 1687. Three months later, Child and his deputy had an audience with King James II of England, and as per the ensuing discussions, a charter was issued by the King on 30 December 1687 which established the Corporation of Madras. The corporation was established to restrain the powers of Gov. Yale, and became the oldest corporation in India, and second oldest municipal body in the world after the City of London. The charter came into effect on 29 September 1688, and a Corporation was established comprising a Mayor, 12 Aldermen, 60 100 Burgesses and sergeants. Nathaniel Higginson, who was then the second member of the Council of Fort St George, took office as the Mayor of Madras. In August 1689, a French fleet appeared near the coast of Ceylon compelling the Governor of Pulicat Lawrence Pitt who was on high seas to seek protection within the bastions of Fort St George. Throughout the year 1690, French naval ships from Pondicherry ravaged the coast in order to drive the English and the Dutch out of the East Indies but were unsuccessful. They eventually withdrew from their enterprise when faced with heavy losses. It was also during this time that the English purchased the town of Tegnapatnam from the Marathas.

Records of the period indicate a flourishing slave trade in Madras. After English merchants began to kidnap young children and deport them to distant parts of the world, the administration of Fort St George stepped in and introduced laws to curb the practice. On 2 February 1688, Elihu Yale decreed that slaves should be examined by the judges of the choultry before being transported. Transportation of young children, in particular, was made unlawful. During his tenure as President of Madras, Yale ordered a minimum of 10 slaves sent on every ship going to Europe, and on a month in 1687, Fort St George exported at least 665 slaves. while, in a 2016 article in the Journal of Global History, Elizabeth Kuebler Wolf stated that he enslaved one or two people as household servants, citing explorer Hiram Bingham's 1939 book Elihu Yale. Historian Joseph Yannielli writes that although Yale "probably did not own any of these people – the majority were held as the property of the East India Company – he certainly profited both directly and indirectly from their sale", while the Sterling Professor David W. Blight suggests that Yale's personal ownership is "not a key question [ ] some portion of [his] considerable fortune derived from his myriad entanglements with the purchase and sale of human beings" through his "key leadership role in the business of human trafficking". Notable diamonds from these mines included the Orlov Diamond, belonging to Prince Grigory Orlov and Catherine the Great, the Black Orlov, belonging to Russian princesses, the Hope Diamond, belonging to Louis XIV and Thomas Hope, the Wittelsbach Graff Diamond, belonging to the Habsburgs and Wittelsbachs, and many others. Along with Sir Jean Chardin and Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Yale was among the most important European diamond traders in the world, as nearly all diamonds came from India during that period. In relation to GDP, his fortune amounted to 1/4 % of the United Kingdom's GDP at the time, which translates to nearly 6 billion British pounds in 2021 money. He kept doing business with his friends Governor Thomas Pitt, grandfather of the Prime Minister of Britain, and Sir Charles Cotterell, during the era where London became the international trading centre of diamonds, dislodging Portugal and the Netherlands. Yale spent the rest of his life at Plas Grono on the Erddig estate, a mansion in Wrexham, Wales, bought by his father, and at his main London residence in Queen's Square. Initially named "Devonshire Square", neighbors included the Duke of Powis at Powis House, Lord Chancellor Bathurst, Queen Anne and her son, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, artists Charles Burney and Jonathan Richardson, and others. He had four houses in London as well as several coach houses and stables to store his vast art collection of more than 10,000 items consisting of 7,000 paintings, jewels, pictures, books, watches, swords, and other items. Other notable artists whose works were part of his collection were Bruegel, Van Dyck, Dürer, Rubens and Rembrandt. He also leased Latimer House from his son in law, Lord James Cavendish, son of the 1st Duke of Devonshire, to accommodate his daughter Ursula. Elihu was later elected High Sheriff of Denbighshire in Wales, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1717, under the then President, Sir Isaac Newton. Yale's candidature was introduced by Sir Hans Sloan, founder of the British Museum, and compeer of Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin.

In 1680 Yale married Catherine Elford, widow of Joseph Hynmers, second in command of Fort St George, India as Deputy Governor for the East India Company. Her father was wealthy Levant merchant Walter Elford, son of Turkey merchant Walter Sr., the step nephew of Admiral Sir Francis Drake of Buckland Abbey, the explorer, and the half brother of Sir Francis Drake, the MP. Walter Elford Sr. was among the pioneers of the English Coffee Houses on Exchange Alley, next to the Royal Exchange, owning the Great Coffee House (Turk's Head) until the Great Fire of London, and was featured in Samuel Pepys's diaries. Catherine Elford's maternal grandfather was merchant Richard Chambers, Alderman and Sheriff of the City of London, family of Sir Amyas Bampfylde of Poltimore House and Barrington Court. Their wedding took place at St Mary's Church, at Fort St George, where Yale was a vestryman and treasurer. The marriage was the first registered at the church. They had 4 children together. David who died young in 1687; Katherine (died 1715), who married Dudley North of Glenham Hall; Anne (died 1734), who married James Cavendish of Chatsworth House, son of William Cavendish of Hardwick Hall, 1st Duke of Devonshire and Lady Mary Butler; a Portuguese Jewish diamond merchant and mines owner, Yale formed a relationship with his widow Hieronima de Paiva and brought her to live with him, causing a scandal within Madras’s colonial society. They had a son who died, along with his mother, in South Africa. His tomb bears an inscription:

In Boston, Massachusetts, a tablet to Yale was erected in 1927 at Scollay Square, near the site of Yale's birth. Yale president Arthur Twining Hadley penned the inscription, which reads: "On Pemberton Hill, 255 Feet North of This Spot, Was Born on April Fifth 1649 Elihu Yale, Governor of Madras, Whose Permanent Memorial in His Native Land is the College That Bears His Name." At his death, with no proper will, his heirs at law inherited the Plas Grono estate and sold it to Sir George Wynne.

In 1718, Cotton Mather contacted Yale and asked for his help. Mather represented a small institution of learning that had been founded in 1701 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, as the Collegiate School of Connecticut, which needed money for a new building. In 1717, Isaac Newton gave the college a copy of his book Principia, on Newton's laws of motion and Newton's law of universal gravitation, and in 1718, Yale sent Mather 417 books, a portrait of King George I of Britain, and nine bales of goods. These last were sold by the school for £800. In gratitude, officials named the new building Yale; eventually the entire institution became Yale College. Yale was also a vestryman and treasurer of St Mary's Church at Fort St George. On 6 October 1968, the 250th anniversary of the naming of Yale College for Yale, the classmates of Chester Bowles, then the American ambassador to India and a graduate of Yale (1924), donated money for lasting improvements to the church and erected a plaque to commemorate the occasion. In 1970, a portrait of him, later renamed Elihu Yale with Members of his Family and an Enslaved Child, was donated to the Yale Center for British Art from Chatsworth House. A portrait, painted during the 18th century, was also given to Yale University by U. S President Dwight D. Eisenhower. On 5 April 1999, Yale University recognised the 350th anniversary of Yale's birthday. Of Yale's donation to the college, totalling just under $1500, Gordon suggested that "never has so much immortality been purchased for so paltry a [ ] sum." In her article for The Atlantic about Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University, Alexandra Robbins alleges that Yale's headstone was stolen years ago from its proper setting in Wrexham. She further alleges that the tombstone is now displayed in a glass case in a room with purple walls.

In the 21st century Yale University's historic associations with the slave trade have been re evaluated. In 2017, the university determined to rename Calhoun College, which honoured the white supremacist and pro slavery leader John C. Calhoun. In respect of Elihu Yale, the process was assisted by the availability online of the relevant East India Company records. In 2020 Yale's president, Peter Salovey, launched the Yale and Slavery Research Project to explore the university's links with slavery and colonialism, including Elihu Yale's central role. In his foreword to the report, Salovey wrote of the importance of the study as providing a "deeper, more honest understanding of who we are" and of helping in "coming to terms with injustices of the past and in confronting current wrongs".

The ancestry of the Yale family can be traced back to Thomas Yale, born 1525. For the House of Mathrafal, and Powys Fadog, it was through Tudur ap Gruffudd, Lord of Gwyddelwern and brother of the last native Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndŵr, while for the House of Aberffraw, and the Tudors of Penmynydd, it was through Elen Ferch Tomos, the mother of Owain. From these families they inherited Lordships and estates, such as Plas yn Iâl (Yale). The Coat of arms of the Yales came originally in the family from Osborn Fitzgerald, Lord of Ynys m Maengwyn and Corsygedol, of which they were the direct descendants, and was used to create the coat of arms of Yale College. Osborn Fitzgerald was a member of the House of Fitzgerald through the Earls of Desmond. He made the trip from Ireland to Wales during the thirteenth century with Gruffydd ab Ednyved Vychan, son of Seneschal Ednyfed Fychan, and was granted Lordships by the Prince of North Wales, Llywelyn the Great. He was the progenitor of many houses in Wales, including the House of Yale, having inherited the claims of Owain Glyndwr, Prince of Wales. The House of Yale is, on the paternal side, a cadet branch of the Royal House of Mathrafal, through the Princes of Powys Fadog, and a cadet branch of the Fitzgerald dynasty, through the Merioneth House of Corsygedol. Their Fitzgerald ancestor was lord Gerald of Windsor, son of baron Walter FitzOtho, 1st Governor of Windsor Castle for William the Conqueror, and were cousins of the Tudors through Tudur ap Gruffudd and Owain Glyndwr of the Mathrafal dynasty. The family estate at Plas yn Iâl ("Iâl" is anglicised as "Yale"), North Wales, of which the family took the name, was inherited from Baron Elissau ab Gruffydd, a member of the Royal House of Mathrafal and descendant of the Royal House of Plantagenet, when he married Margaret, the heiress of Plas yn Yale, in the Lordship of Bromfield and Yale. Her ancestor, Lord Mostyn, was granted the estate by the Prince of Wales, Owain Gwynedd, for his services at the Battle of Crogen in 1165. Elissau ab Gruffydd was the grandfather of Chancellor Thomas Yale, who was the first to adopt definitively the Yale surname, and had, as his ancestor, Prince Gruffudd Fychan I, the Lord of Yale.

Elihu later became the name of a "senior society" founded in 1903 at Yale. Tom Wolfe, who earned a Ph. D. in American Studies from Yale, named the African American Atlanta police chief in A Man in Full Elihu Yale. Yale College, a former college in Wrexham, Wales, which has since merged with Coleg Cambria, was also named after Elihu Yale. Theodore Roosevelt's son Quentin kept a hyacinth macaw named Eli Yale.