The establishment of Carey Business School was engendered by the announcement in 2006 of a $50 million gift by philanthropist William P. Carey to Johns Hopkins through his W. P. Carey Foundation, in order to create a business school at the university. The gift remains the largest to the Johns Hopkins University in support of business education to date. The school is named in honor of William P. Carey's ancestor, James Carey, an 18th and 19th-century Baltimore shipper, chairman of the Bank of Maryland, member of the Baltimore City Council, and relative of university founder Johns Hopkins.W. P. Carey Foundation has similarly contributed to the endowments of the W. P. Carey School of Business at the Arizona State University ($50 million pledge in 2003), University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law ($30 million donation in 2011), and University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School ($125 million gift in 2019).