William A. M. Burden

William Armistead Moale Burden Jr. (April 8, 1906 – October 10, 1984) was an American banker, art collector, and philanthropist who served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium under President Eisenhower. Early life Burden was born on April 8, 1906, in Manhattan to William Armistead Moale Burden Sr. (1877–1909), and Florence Vanderbilt (née Twombly) (1881–1969). His younger brother Shirley Carter Burden (1908–1989) was a prominent photographer. Their paternal grandparents were I. Townsend Burden (1838–1913) and Evelyn Byrd Moale (1847–1916), the daughter of William Armistead Moale (1800–1880) of Baltimore, Maryland, who was a descendant of the Carter and Byrd families of Virginia. Burden's grandfather was an owner of Burden Iron Works, which was founded by his great-grandfather, Henry Burden (1791–1871). His maternal grandparents were Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly, a granddaughter of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Hamilton McKown Twombly. Burden attended and graduated from Harvard College in 1927. He also attended special aviation courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.