Henry Ware Eliot Henry Ware Eliot Henry Ware Eliot (November 25, 1843 – January 7, 1919) was an American industrialist and philanthropist who lived in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the father of poet T. S. Eliot. He was the son of Abigail Adams (Cranch) and William Greenleaf Eliot, a prominent St. Louis Unitarian minister who was a co-founder of Washington University. Eliot graduated from Washington University, A.B. 1863. Henry Eliot remained a Unitarian all his life. Henry was named in honor of Henry Ware Jr., a prominent leader of Harvard Divinity School and mentor of Henry Eliot's father in seminary. Eliot first
T. S. Eliot religious sensibility." After this, he worked on more "commercial" plays for more general audiences: "The Family Reunion" (1939), "The Cocktail Party" (1949), "The Confidential Clerk", (1953) and "The Elder Statesman" (1958) (the latter three were produced by Henry Sherek and directed by E. Martin Browne). The Broadway production in New York of "The Cocktail Party" received the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play. Eliot wrote "The Cocktail Party" while he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study. Regarding his method of playwriting, Eliot explained, "If I set out to write a play, I start by an act