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He was born in New Deer, Aberdeenshire, in Scotland. After studying at University of Dundee, in 1897 Forbes worked as a reporter and editorial writer with a local Dundee newspaper until 1901 when he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he founded the Rand Daily Mail. He emigrated to New York City in the United States in 1904 where he was employed as a writer and financial editor at the Journal of Commerce before joining the Hearst chain of newspapers as a syndicated columnist in 1911. He left Hearst after two years to become the business and financial editor at the New York American where he remained until 1916.

He founded Forbes magazine in 1917 and remained Editor-in-Chief until his death in New York City in 1954, though assisted in his later years by Bruce Charles Forbes (1916-1964) and Malcolm Stevenson Forbes (1919-1990), his two eldest sons.

He was the founder of the Investors League in 1942. He died on May 6, 1954.

B.C. Forbes authored several books:

• Finance, Business and the Business of Life (1915)
• Men Who Are Making America (1917)
• Forbes Epigrams (1922)
• Men Who are Making the West (1923)
• Automotive Giants of America (1925)
• How to Get the Most Out of Business (1927)
• 101 Unusual Experiences (1952)