1From Benjamin Franklin to the Printer of The London Chronicle, 9 May 1759 (Franklin Papers)
...(1573–1645), dean of Gloucester, 1616–21; bishop of St. David’s, 1621–26; bishop of Bath and Wells, 1626–28; bishop of London, 1628–33; archbishop of Canterbury, 1633–45; chancellor of Oxford University, 1629–41.
2Oxford University: Record of Degree of Doctor of Civil Law, 30 April 1762 (Franklin Papers)
Register of Convocation, University Archives: Oxford UniversityThe “Heads of Houses” at Oxford University had voted, Feb. 22, 1762, to confer on Franklin the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law “whenever He shall please to visit the University.” Above, p. 59. The ceremony took place at a special...
3To Benjamin Franklin from Conte Giovanni Baptista Carburi, 27 March 1765 (Franklin Papers)
George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough (1739–1817), succeeded to the title in 1758. In the Grenville ministry he was lord privy seal, April 1763 to July 1765. Oxford University conferred the degree of D.C.L. on him in 1763 and he became high steward in 1779. Among his gifts to the university was a large telescope, but what interest he may have had in electricity is...
4To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Fayerweather, 5 December 1768 (Franklin Papers)
Winthrop’s second marriage was to Fayerweather’s sister. One of the criticisms of the Church of England was “that little Sam Fayerweather who had been buried under the honors piled on him by Oxford University was a brother-in-law of Professor John Winthrop, … one of the greatest of living Americans, who was refused an honorary degree by the same institution because he was a Congregationalist.”
5To George Washington from Major General William Heath, 11 December 1776 (Washington Papers)
, and throughout the war years he wrote numerous articles and letters championing the royal cause in Loyalist newspapers. Oxford University conferred a doctorate of divinity on Inglis in 1778. Inglis left New York at the end of the war, and in 1787 he became bishop of Nova Scotia.
6To George Washington from Brigadier General Christopher Gadsden, 4 July 1777 (Washington Papers)
..., the date that Edward Rutledge wrote a letter of introduction for Horry to GW. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1745–1825) was a successful Charleston, S.C., attorney who had studied law at Oxford University in the 1760s. Pinckney served in the South Carolina provincial assembly in 1769, in the South Carolina provincial congress in 1775, and on the South Carolina council of safety in 1776. In...
7From George Washington to Brigadier General William Woodford, 13 October 1777 (Washington Papers)
, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, New College, Oxford University, England.
“⅌ Capt. Wilder” is written on the cover.
8From James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 10 June 1783 (Madison Papers)
David Hartley (1732–1813), graduate of Oxford University (1750), member of the House of Commons (1774–1780, 1782–1784), and close friend of Franklin, was a Rockingham Whig who had supported the American cause and endeavored to abolish the slave trade. He wrote...
9To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 21 July 1783 (Madison Papers)
...are much indebted to the courtesy and perseverance of Atcheson L. Hench, Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia. Following much unrewarding correspondence, he was supplied with the elusive reference by a “‘learned friend’ of a man in Oxford” University (Letters of Atcheson L. Hench, 9 Apr., 10 Apr. 1970).
10To Benjamin Franklin from David Hartley, 11 October 1783 (Franklin Papers)
1729–1787), D.D. Oxford University (1764), was a chaplain to George III from 1777 until his death: Joseph Foster,