TO have attained eminence in the greatest banking center in America, in competition with the keenest financial minds of the world, is in itself a mark of distinction. But to have risen to this position without the aid or influence of others, shows unusual ability and genius for banking.

Walter Edwin Frew, the honoured President of the Corn Exchange Bank, New York City, was born in Brooklyn, July 18, 1864. With the half-century mark just past, he has his ripest years of accomplishment still before him. He is the son of George Edward and Amanda Crocker Frew.

Mr. Frew was educated in the public schools of Brooklyn and in Green-point Academy, leaving school at the age of sixteen to accept a position with the banking house of Shepherd, Knapp & Company.. In 1885, he entered the Eleventh Ward Bank, New York City, as a clerk. After serving four years in minor positions, he was appointed Cashier of the Queens County Bank, Long Island City, in 1889, and elected its President in 1895. Mr. Frew was just thirty-one years old, and had been in the business only ten years, but though one of the youngest bank presidents in the country, had so far proved his energy, integrity and capacity for detail as to be recognized as a coming power in the banking world. In 1899, he became Vice-President of the Corn Exchange Bank, New York, and in 1911 was elected President. In his connection with this institution, Mr. Frew has come to be recognized as far more than the executive head of a great and successful bank. Aside from the characteristics that make a capable and forceful personality, he combines an original genius for banking practice and a courage for meeting new problems in new ways that have brought new spirit and new methods into commercial banking, and have made the Corn Exchange Bank a success and through its influence have extended to banking business throughout the country. Notable among these is the growth and development of the branch banking system, which has met with such favour in New York, that his own bank now has nearly forty successful branches in the Greater City.

Mr. Frew is Vice-President and a director in the Corn Exchange Safe Deposit Company; a director in the Bankers’ Trust Company and the United Button Company; and a trustee of the Dry Dock Savings Bank. He has been Secretary of the New York Clearing House Association and Chairman of the New York Clearing house Committee, and during the Panic of 1907 held a responsible place on the Loan Committee. He has also served as Secretary and Chairman of the New York State Bankers’ Association. Mr. Frew is held in high regard by his large circle of friends and business associates. He has won the respect and admiration of the bank’s employees, and remembers them generously at vacation and Christmas time.