James Alexander, 1690-1756. Scots-born lawyer who held several
important positions in colonial New York. He is best-known today as one
of the lawyers defending Peter Zengler in 1735.
William Allen 1704-1780. Son of a Philadelphia merchant and one of the
riches men in Philadelphia, Allen was a patriotic English subject
and was not above
augmenting his wealth by privateering against French and Spanish ships. He
was a loyalist in the revolution, though he lived in Philadelphia until his
death.
Thomas Bond, 1712-1784. Philadelphia physician and a founder of
both the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society. His
lectures were one of the first regular courses in clinical care and earned him
the title "Father of Clinical Medicine". He established the first American field hospitals in the War of Independence.
Edward Braddock. British Major-General in charge of
British forces in America (not Canada) in 1755 at the beginning of the
French and Indian Wars. His first target was Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh)
where he lost 60% of his men and his own life, leaving the remnant of the
British Army in America under the command of a very inexperienced George
Washington.
William Bradford, 1663-1752. One of the first printers in the Colonies
and patriarch of a long line of publishers. He first settled in Philadelphia,
but got in trouble with the Quakers for some things he published. He went to
New York in 1693 and prospered there. He referred the young Ben Franklin to
Philadelphia when Ben came to him looking for work.
Georges Louis Leclerc,Comte de Buffon, 1707-1788.
Mathematician and natural historian, discoverer of the Binomial Theorem. He is best known for his work in probability theory and the brilliant illustrations in
his Natural History, General and Particular.
Gilbert Burnet, 1643-1714. An important figure in Restoration Whig
circles, Chaplain to William III and subsequently Bishop of Salisbury. His
History of My Own Time is an important primary source for political
events of the late 1600s. I have a copy of his History of the
Reformation.
William Burnet, 1688-1729. Colonial governor of New York and son of
Bishop Burnet. After quarreling with the New York Assembly in 1727 he was
transferred to govern Massachusetts.
Edward Cave, 1691-1754. English printer and publisher. He is best
known for founding The Gentleman's Magazine and for
supporting --literally--Samuel Johnson for many years.
John Canton, 1718-1772. English scientist and philosopher. He
systematically studied electricity and extended many of Franklin's findings.
Thomas Denham, d. 1728. A Philadelphia Quaker merchant who
befriended Franklin on his voyage to England in 1724 and did him many services
for the rest of his life. It was Denham who advised Franklin to take work as
a printer in London, and who paid for his passage home to Philadelphia where
he employed Ben as a clerk. He also left money to Franklin when he died.
William Denny. Governor of Pennsylvania, 1756-59. He succeeded
Robert Hunter Morris.
Everard Fawkener, 1684-1758, a servant of Lord Cumberland who held
high positions in the Tory governments of the 18th century, including
Postmaster General.
Abiah (Folger) Franklin, 1667-1752. Mother of Ben Franklin and 9 other
children. She married the widower Josiah Franklin in 1690.
John Fothergill, 1712-1780. English physician and member of the
Royal Academy. He was the first to understand the significance of
arteriosclerosis.
James Franklin, 1697-1735. Ben's brother (the fourth son in the
family), a printer to whom Ben was
apprenticed and with whom he later quarreled. James's wife was Ann Smith.
Josiah Franklin, 1657-1745. Ben's father. He moved to Boston in
1683 and manufactured soap and candles. He sired ten boys and seven girls,
Ben being the youngest. His first wife was Abiah Folger.
Peter Folger, 1617-1690. Franklin's maternal grandfather and one
of the early settlers of Nantucket.
Tench Francis, ?-1758. English-born lawyer. He came to America as
an attorney for Lord Baltimore and established a practice in Philadelphia
about 1738. He was one of the founding trustees of Franklin's Academy.
Frederick, Prince of Wales, 1707-1751. First son of George II and
father of George III. He quarreled with his father most of his adult life and
had to petition Parliament for an allowance, the King denying him any. He died
young supposedly after being hit on the head by a cricket ball.
Gentleman's Magazine. The first publication to use the name
"magazine". It had a long and glorious history, from 1741 to 1914,
and included the writings of the best British and American authors in that
period. It was founded by Edward Cave as a digest but eventually began
publishing original content. Samuel Johnson was a supporter and contributor.
John Carteret, 2nd Earl of Granville, 1690=1763. One of the
favorite ministers of George II (because he spoke fluent German) and an expert
on foreign policy. He did not do as well at home, quarreling with Walpole,
but he was Prime Minister at the time of the Stamp Act.
Thomas Godfey, 1704-1749, American mathematician and inventor. He is best
known as the father of the first American playwright, also Thomas Godfey
(1736-1763).
Alexander Hamilton, 1676-1741, Scots-born American lawyer. He was
attorney-general of Pennsylvania and a member of the council. As an amateur
architect, he contributed to the design of the State House (Independence Hall).
He is best remembered for defending John Peter Zenger in New York in 1735,
a case in which he tried to establish truth as a defense of libel; he failed
at that, but got Zenger off, anyway.
James Hamilton, 1710-1783. Son of Alexander Hamilton. He
was a member of the colonial assembly, mayor of Philadelphia, member of
the provincial council, and was Governor of Pennsylvania at outbreak of the
Revolution. He was involved with Franklin in the College of Philadelphia and
the American Philosophical Society.
David Hume, 1711-1776. Scottish historian and philosopher. He
knew Franklin in Paris, where Hume was also posted as a diplomat before the
Revolution. Hume had some things in common with Franklin, despite class
differences, including an early and fixed determination of a path in life.
Here's Hume's: "I laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality to supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvement of my talents in literature."
Thomas Hutchinson, 1711-1780. Governor of Massachusetts, 1771-74.
A descendant of Ann Hutchinson, he was a substantial figure in the colonies.
It was his (and Andrew Oliver's) correspondence with Thomas Whately,
private secretary to the Prime Minister Grenville, which was revealed by
Franklin and which did so much to sour the Massachusetts colonists' view of
the British government's intentions. He was replaced as Governor by
Gen. Gates in 1774 and settled in England. His history of Massachusetts is
said to be a very good reference.
George Keith, 1638-1716. Scottish-born Quaker who came to
Pennsylvania in 1686. He was a disputatious sort and soon quarreled with the
Quaker establishment. For a while he led a schismatic meeting, but eventually
returned to England and became an Anglican. Keith's story intersects with
Franklin's when William Bradford, the printer, publishes one of Keith's papers.
This leads to Bradford's arrest and eventually his move to New York where he
advised Franklin.
Sir William Keith, 1680-1749. Son of a Scottish baronial family,
he became governor of Pennsylvania, after long negotiation, in 1717. His
appointment was welcomed as blow to the power of the Penn family. The Penns
regained influence and forced his resignation in 1727; he returned to England
and died in poverty.
John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, 1705-1782. Scottish soldier. He
fought on the side of the King, not always successfully (see especially the
Rout of Moy) during the Stuart
risings. He was sent to America in 1756, first as royal Governor of Virginia,
then as chief of all British Forces on the Continent. He was sent home in
1757 after being soundly defeated by Montcalm in Quebec. Hardly ever a victor,
he nonetheless retained a military reputation and died as colonel of a foot regiment.
Bernard de Mandeville, 1760-1733, English satirist. His Fable of
the Bees, a combined political satire and commentary on contemporary
philosophical questions, was occasionally banned and Mandeville was considered
a rather wicked man. Here's the gloss of the Fable from Encyclopedia
Britannica (1911). Mandeville asserts that
The higher life of man is merely a fiction introduced by philosophers and rulers to simplify government and the relations of society. In fact, virtue (which he defined as " every performance by which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should endeavour the benefit of others, or the conquest of his own passions, out of a rational ambition of being good ") is actually detrimental to the state in its commercial and intellectual progress, for it is the vices (i.e. the self-regarding actions of men) which alone, by means of inventions and the circulation of capital in connection with luxurious living, stimulate society into action and progress. In the Fable he shows a society possessed of all the virtues " blest with content and honesty," falling into apathy and utterly paralyzed. The absence of self-love (cf. Hobbes) is the death of progress. The so-called higher virtues are mere hypocrisy, and arise from the selfish desire to be superior to the brutes. " The moral virtues are the political offspring which flattery begot upon pride." Similarly he arrives at the great paradox that " private vices are public benefits. . . ." He endeavours to show that all social laws are the crystallized results of selfish aggrandizement and protective alliances among the weak. Denying any form of moral sense or conscience, he regards all the social virtues as evolved from the instinct for self-preservation, the give-and-take arrangements between the partners in a defensive and offensive alliance, and the feelings of pride and vanity artificially fed by politicians, as an antidote to dissension and chaos.
William Murray, Lord Mansfield, 1705-1793. British lawyer. He
was solicitor general, majority leader of the Commons, attorney general
and finally Chief Justice of the Court
of King's Bench, where he earned a reputation as a great judge of commercial
law. His opinions are still frequently cited.
Robert Hunter Morris, 1700-1764. Colonial Governor of Pennsylvania.
Son of New Jersey governor Lewis Morris. He was the natural father of Robert
Morris.
Jean Antoine Nollet, 1700-1770. Priest and physicist. He invented
the first detector of electrical charges and was the first professor of
experimental physics at the Sorbonne.
Isaac Norris, 1701-1766. Leader of the Old Quaker faction of the
Pennsylvania and for many years the Speaker of that house. Although strongly
opposed to the Proprietors, he also opposed Franklin's proposal to establish
Pennsylvania as a royal colony.
Andrew Oliver, 1706-1774. Boston native, member of the provincial
calendar and eventually Lieutenant Governor. Brother-in-law to Thomas
Hutchinson with whom he was involved in writing the famous letters to
Whateley.
George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, 1695-1764. Astronomer and
president of the Royal Society. He was key in changing the English calendar from
the Gregorian schedule to the current one.
Henry Pemberton, 1694-1771. A physician and
friend of Sir Isaac Newton. He supervised the publication of the third edition
of Newton's Principa and was associated with Gresham College and the
Royal College of Physicians.
Richard Peters, 1704-1776. English born clergyman and
lawyer attached to the Penn
family. He served for a long time as Secretary of the Land Office, one of the
most important Proprietary post. He was one of the first men Franklin
approached about establishing the Academy.
Thomas Pownall, 1722-1805, colonial governor of Massachusetts
(1757-59) and South Carolina (1759-60). He strongly prosecuted the French and
Indian Wars in the colonies, but is probably best remembered for his book
Administration of the Colonies in which he advocated unification of the
American colonies and closer ties between them and England. Though opposed to
appeasement in 1775, he proposed a peace bill in Parliament in 1780.
Josiah Quincy, 1709-1784. Boston lawyer, father of the Josiah
Quincy who took the American grievances to England in 1774 and grandfather of
the Josiah Quincy who became president of Harvard University. The Quincy
family was one of the richest and most prominent in the Bay Colony.
James Ralph, 1695-1762. A friend of Franklin from the age of about
18, he fancied himself a poet. Ralph went to London with Ben Franklin in 1724
(abandoning a wife and child) and never returned to Philadelphia. He was
was enough of a poet to be lampooned by Pope in The Dunciad, and
enough of a polemicist to earn a pension when George III came to the throne.
Ralph's 15 minutes of fame in the Dunciad comes in Book III, line 165:
Silence, ye wolves! While Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous;--Answer him, ye owls!
Pierre le Roy, 1717-1785. French physicist and the preeminent
expert on clocks and time of his generation.
Jonathan Shipley, 1714-1788, Bishop of St. Asaph's. He was a Whig
and a strong opponent of the Tory government's treatment of the American
colonies. He preached toleration, advocating the abolition of all laws against
Protestant dissenters.
William Shirley, 1694-1771. Colonial governor of Massachusetts
(until 1756) and later of the Bahamas. He took command of British forces in
North America after the death of General Braddock in 1755 at the end of the
French and Indian War. His conduct then and in a campaign against French
Canada cost him his job as Governor, but he was acquitted of all charges.
Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 1650-1707. Rear-Admiral of England. He rose
from low birth to command Queen Anne's navy. He is best known for destroying
Calais in 1696 and capturing Barcelona in 1705. In 1707 his flagship,
Association struck rocks near the Scilly Isles and sank with the loss of
all on board.
Sir Hans Sloane, 1660-1753. English physician, explorer and
collector. He made the first extensive survey of flora and fauna of Jamaica
during a voyage there. He was President of the Royal Society from 1727-1741.
Abram Taylor, 1706-1772. English trader. He made a lot of money
in Pennsylvania, but never liked it there. He nevertheless lived there from
around 1724 to 1762 and served as one of
the founding trustees of Franklin's Academy.
Saint Veronica, in Catholic tradition a woman of Jerusalem who
offered Jesus a towel to wipe his bleeding face as he dragged his cross
through the streets. She was said to have come later to Rome where the
famous towel, with the image of Christ in blood, was exhibited for centuries.
Sir William Watson, 1715-1787. English physician, scientist and
member of the
Royal Society. He developed a theory of conversation of electrical charge
at about the same time as, and independently of, Franklin. He was also a
botanist and supporter of Linnaeus.
George Whitefield, 1714-1770. English Methodist preacher, he
was a key figure in the "Great Awakening" of religion in the English-speaking
world in the 18th century. He made 7 voyages to America, beginning in 1739,
mostly to bring aid and comfort to the poor colonists of Georgia. Whitefield
was a tremendously popular and effective speaker and was said to have preached
to more people than any man had done before.
William Wollaston, 1659-1724. English philosopher. His Religion
of Nature was an 18th-century best-seller.
Sir Charles Wyndham, 1710-1763. Son of Sir William Wyndham, the
Tory politician, he inherited the title Earl of Egremont in 1750 on the death
of his uncle, Algernon Seymour. He became a secretary of State in 1761.
Sir William Wyndham, 1687-1740. A "great man" indeed, having been
Secretary of War and Chancellor of the Exchequer and, in Franklin's time in
London, a leader with Lord Bolingbroke of the anti-Walpole party.
Edward Young, 1683-1765. English poet and clergyman,
much admired for his wit
and conversation. His best known piece is
The Complaint: or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality
(1742-44); but he earlier (1725-28) wrote a series of satires under the
general title of The Universal Passion as well as several dramas.