The history of real estate activity of New Haven county would be incomplete were there failure to make prominent reference to Benjamin F. English, one of the largest individual operators in the field of real estate in New Haven. Moreover, he is connected with some of the oldest and most honored families of the city and is happy in that his lines of life have been cast in harmony therewith. Born in New Haven on the 25th of June, 1873, he is a son of Benjamin R. and Teresa (Farren) English, natives of New Haven and Fairhaven respectively, and connected in lineal and collateral branches with a number of the most prominent families of this section of the state. His father. Benjamin R. English, became one of the leading factors in the business life of the city, being prominently identified with real estate dealings and banking and financially interested in various commercial undertakings. So wisely and carefully did he direct his activities and investments that lie came to rank with the men of wealth of New Haven. He was also numbered with those public-spirited men who seek ever the welfare of the community, and at one time he served as postmaster at New Haven. The city lost one of its most substantial and respected citizens when in 1915 he passed away. He is survived by his widow and one son.

Benjamin F. English, the second in order of birth, supplemented his public school education by a course in the Hopkins grammar school of New Haven and then started out in the business world as an employe of the Merchants National Bank of New Haven. He was afterward with the First National Hank of this city and later was associated with Peck Brothers, while subsequently he spent some time in Utah and California, where he was engaged in mining. He then returned to the middle west and did clerical work for the Union Pacific Railroad Company in Kansas City, Missouri, for four years. On the expiration of that period he came to New Haven, where he entered the field of real estate, establishing a business which has grown to be one of the largest, conducted individually, in this city. Mr. English has comprehensive and accurate knowledge of realty values, and his investments have been most wisely and judiciously made, resulting in the acquirement of substantial and well merited success. He became one of the organizers of the New Haven real estate board and was elected its second president.

In October, 1904, Mr. English was married to Miss Augusta A. Moeller, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Moeller of New Haven, and they now have two children, Augusta T., who was born in Kansas City in 1905; and Benjamin F., born in Kansas City in 1906. Both are now attending the schools of New Haven.

Mr. and Mrs. English are members of St. Paul's church and Mr. English holds membership in the Quinnipiac and Pine Orchard Country Clubs. He is also identified with the New Haven Historical Society, the Sons of the American Revolution, his eligibility to membership in the latter coming through both paternal and maternal ancestral lines. He is now secretary of the New Haven County Auxiliary of the Connecticut State Council of Defense; secretary of the New Haven Chapter of the American National Red Cross; and is a member of Company F, Home Guard. He is identified with the Chamber of Commerce of New Haven and is in sympathy with all of its carefully organized and directed efforts for the upbuilding of the city. In fact he stands for progress and improvement along the lines of material, intellectual, social and moral development arid the force of his example constitutes a weight of influence that has far reaching effect.