Dropout to Oil Baron

A little-known coal mining boy who lifted himself up to become an important public figure, gas and oil tycoon and philanthropist was Robert Watchorn (1858-1944).

What little we know of Watchorn’s early days tells us only that he was born in Alfreton, Derbyshire, England and attended a Church of England school until he was eleven. Thereafter he began to work in the coal mines, one shilling per day for a twelve hour shift.

After about ten years of this, he moved to Pennsylvania, continuing to work as a coal miner. There he joined the United Mine Workers and eventually rose to the position of secretary of the union. His competence was noticed, and he was appointed Chief Factory Inspector of Pennsylvania, the first ever to hold that position. In a day of child labour and sweatshops, his pioneering was at the forefront of fair labour practices, likely by virtue of having himself working twelve hours a day as an eleven year old.

His effective and pioneering work captured the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt who gave him the position of Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island. There Watchorn instituted significant reforms, including the building new dormitories and hospitals at the site.

After Roosevelt’s term ended, Watchorn was not reappointed by the incoming Taft, so in 1909 he took his skills to the private sector, moving to Oklahoma where he soon enjoyed major success as a wildcatter in the oil business, founding the Watchorn Oil and Gas Company and enjoying significant wealth.

As is so often the case in rags to riches stories, he was eager to “give back”, donating nearly a million and a half dollars between 1915 and 1936, back in the time when “a dollar was a dollar”. Some sources indicate that his charity continued unabated even under his estate, with the total exceeding three million dollars by 1957.

Luck? Friends in high places? A fluke? No, none of these. Robert Watchorn demonstrates again the principle that it’s not your credentials, but your Giftings, which lead to success. Whether or not you have a certificate on the wall, and no matter what it says on it, the real secret to success in business, in the professions, and in life is in applying your Giftings, that is, your innate attributes which have been shaped by experience and honed by training.

As in Watchorn’s case, one’s success is often a slow, sometimes imperceptible arc, but always building on what came before, no matter how humble. And as we have seen time and again, one of the nearly universal features of those who “came up by their Giftings” is a deep and effective generosity of money and of time.

We don’t all start as coal mining boys, and we don’t all end up as oil tycoons, but we can all lean into our Giftings to make the world a better place and to achieve success and happiness.