History
The W. R. Grace and Company was founded in 1854, in Peru, by William Russell Grace, who left Ireland due to the potato famine, and traveled to South America with his father and family. He went first to Peru to work as a ship's chandler for the firm of Bryce and Company, to the merchantmen harvesting guano (bird droppings), used as a fertilizer and gunpowder ingredient due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen.
His brother Michael joined the business and in 1865 the company name was changed to Grace Brothers & Co. The company set up head office operations in New York City in 1865. Working in fertilizer and machinery, the company was formally chartered in 1872, and incorporated in 1895.
Michael and William Grace had a third brother, John W. Grace. For years he remained mostly out of the limelight running a business in San Francisco, California. However, with Michael based in London, England for half the year plus his extensive travelling to South America, when William developed health problems in the early 1890s it became necessary for John to come to New York to help oversee operations.
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