William Penn

English religious leader and American colonist

• Born: October 14, 1644
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: July 30, 1718
• Place of death: Ruscombe, Berkshire, England

A leading Quaker, Penn shaped the early development of the religion, conducted a traveling ministry, wrote numerous religious tracts, and was a major advocate of religious toleration in England. He founded Pennsylvania as a refuge for dissenters.

Early Life

William Penn was born on October 14, 1644, on Tower Hill in London, England. His mother was the widow Margaret Vanderschuren, the daughter of John Jasper, a Rotterdam merchant. His father, Sir William Penn, was an admiral in the British navy who first achieved prominence under Oliver Cromwell and, after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, went on to further success under the Stuarts. Despite some ups and downs in his career, the elder Penn accumulated estates in Ireland, rewards for his services, providing sufficient income so that the younger Penn was reared as a gentleman and exposed to the upper echelons of English society.

Penn received his early education at the Chigwell School, followed by a stint at home with a tutor who prepared him for entrance into college. In 1660, he was enrolled at Christ Church, Oxford University, where he remained until March, 1662, when he was expelled for infraction of the rules enforcing religious conformity. He then went on a grand tour of the Continent and spent a year or two at Saumur, France, studying languages and theology at a Huguenot school. After returning to England, he spent a year as a law student at Lincoln’s Inn. His legal studies were somewhat sporadic and were never completed, a pattern that was typical for gentlemen of the day. They did, however, influence his subsequent writings and his ability to argue his own cause as well as those of others.

In Ireland, first as a child and later while acting as an agent for his father, Penn was exposed to Quakerism. It was in 1666, while managing the family estates, that he was converted by Thomas Loe, a Quaker preacher. Much to the horror of his father, young Penn took to preaching at Quaker meetings, quickly achieving prominence among the members of the still relatively new nonconforming sect. Parental disapproval continued until a reputedly dramatic reconciliation at the admiral’s deathbed.

Life’s Work

It was as a Quaker that Penn found his true calling. In 1668, he was in London preaching at meetings, and he produced his first religious tract, Truth Exalted (1668). From that time onward, he spent a good portion of his life traveling, preaching, and writing religious tracts. He made several extended trips to the Continent, speaking at Quaker meetings as well as trying to convert others to the faith. By the end of his life, he had written some 150 works, most of them on religion. Some were descriptions of Quaker doctrines, such as No Cross, No Crown (1669); others were defenses of Quaker principles and actions—for example, Quakerism: A New Nick-Name for Old Christianity (1672).

There was no toleration in England in the 1660’s for those who dissented from the Anglican Church. As a result, Penn, like numerous other Quakers, was arrested for attending Quaker meetings, for preaching, and for publishing a religious tract without a license. Indeed, several of his works were written while he was in prison. As a result of his experiences, as well as of observation of his coreligionists and friends, Penn became an advocate of religious toleration. He wrote several tracts, including England’s Present Interest Discovered (1675), that pleaded with the government to recognize liberty of conscience for all, not only for Quakers. Penn used his position and friendship with the Stuart kings, Charles II and James II , to aid others.

Support for civil rights also came out of Penn’s advocacy of religious toleration. His arrest for preaching at a Friends’ meeting in 1670, a violation of England’s stringent religious laws, led to two trials that ultimately contributed to the independence of juries. In the first case, Penn and his fellow Quaker William Mead were found not guilty of unlawful assembly by a jury that refused to alter its verdict after being ordered to do so or else “go without food or drink.” Members of the jury were then fined; they appealed their case and ultimately were vindicated in their right to establish a verdict free from coercion.

Politically, Penn was caught, in both his beliefs and his friendships, between the liberal dissenting Whig politicians and the conservative followers of the Stuart court. In 1678, he gave his support to Algernon Sidney’s bid for a seat in Parliament, while maintaining his friendship with the duke of York. Penn’s attempt to keep his balance in the volatile English political scene of that period failed with the Glorious Revolution , when England exchanged the Catholic duke of York, James II, for Mary, his Protestant daughter, and her husband, William III of Orange. Accused of treason and at one point placed under arrest, Penn fled and for several years after 1691 went into hiding. It was not until after the turn of the century, under the rule of Queen Anne, that he again safely participated in the English political scene. Penn’s position between the two major camps of the period is also evident in his writings and in the constitutional provisions he made for his colony, Pennsylvania, because they exhibit both liberal and conservative features.

To Americans, Penn is best known for his colonization efforts. His interest in the New World stemmed from his association with the great Quaker leader and preacher George Fox, who traveled through the colonies. Penn’s first involvement was in West Jersey, where he acted as an arbitrator in a complex dispute between two Quakers with claims to that colony. He ultimately became one of the proprietors of West Jersey, as well as, after 1682, of East Jersey. Yet because Quaker claims to the government of the Jerseys were under question, he sought a colony of his own, and it was on Pennsylvania that he expended most of his efforts. In 1681, he obtained a charter from Charles II for extensive territories in America, ostensibly as payment owed to his father; the grant gave him rights to the government as well as the land of the colony.

In establishing Pennsylvania, Penn wanted to create both a refuge for Quakers where they would be free to worship without fear of imprisonment and a government with laws based upon their principles. At the same time, as proprietor of the colony, he hoped that the venture would be profitable. He started by preparing a constitution and laws for the colony, consulting numerous friends for their suggestions and comments. The resulting first Frame of Government proved too complex for the colony and was followed by other modified versions.

Penn also worked to obtain both settlers and investors for his project and advertised it in pamphlets such as A Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania (1681) and A Further Account of the Province of Pennsylvania and Its Improvements (1685), which were published in several languages and distributed both in England and on the Continent. Expecting to be the resident proprietor and governor of the new colony, Penn made plans to move there. He journeyed to America twice, first in 1682 and again in 1699, each time remaining for about two years. Both times he scurried back to England to protect his proprietorship, the first time from a controversy with Lord Baltimore, the proprietor of neighboring Maryland, over boundaries, and the second, to respond to a challenge from English authorities to all proprietary governments.

In the long run, Penn’s colony was a success for everyone but him. His anticipated profits never materialized—a serious disappointment because, with advancing age, he was increasingly in financial difficulty. The Quaker settlers also proved to be a disappointment in their failure to get along with one another as well as with Penn. Indeed, they proved to be an exceedingly contentious lot, and the boundary controversy with Maryland was not solved in Penn’s lifetime. After 1703, Penn negotiated with English authorities to sell his province back to the Crown, a deal that fell through because he suffered an incapacitating stroke in 1712. Pennsylvania, however, grew rapidly, and Philadelphia, the capital city that he had carefully planned, was an impressive success.

Penn is remembered for more than simply his religious writings and the establishment of Pennsylvania. His An Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe (1693) offered proposals for the establishment of peace between nations. In 1697, he proposed a plan of union for the colonies, suggesting the creation of a congress of representatives from each colony that would meet once a year.

Penn was also a warm, affectionate, and concerned family man. In 1668, he married Gulielma Maria Springett; they had eight children, only three of whom survived childhood. In 1696, two years after his first wife’s death, he married Hannah Callowhill, fathering another five children. Unfortunately, his children, like his colony, were a source of disappointment. His oldest son, and favorite, Springett, died at the age of twenty-one. His second son, William Penn, Jr., renounced Quakerism and was something of a rake. The surviving children of his second marriage were, at the time of his death, still young; it was to them that he left his colony of Pennsylvania.

Also contributing to Penn’s woes in his later years was a festering problem with his financial agent, Philip Ford. Both were at fault, Ford for making inappropriate charges and Penn for a laxity in supervising his personal affairs. The result was that Ford’s wife and children (after his death) pushed for payment—including Pennsylvania—for what they claimed were debts; they had Penn arrested and put in prison. When the dust settled, the Ford claims were taken care of and Pennsylvania had been mortgaged to a group of Penn’s Quaker friends.

Significance

Although Penn was never more than a brief resident in the colonies, his contributions to American history were substantial. He played a prominent role in the proprietorships of both East and West Jersey and was the founder of Pennsylvania. Penn was one of a handful of influential Quaker preachers and authors, and although his ideas were not original, he powerfully expressed and defended the sect’s beliefs in numerous pamphlets, as well as in the laws and Frames of Government of Pennsylvania. As a colonizer, his efforts ensured a Quaker presence in America and the sect’s role in the political and religious life of the middle colonies.

Penn’s advocacy of religious toleration, of protection of the right to trial by jury, and of constitutional government carried across the Atlantic; as a result, provisions for all three were made in the colonies with which his name was associated. Penn thought that settlers would be attracted to America not only for its land but also for the freedoms it could offer, maintaining that Englishmen would leave home only if they could get more, rather than less, of both. He worked to make this happen. Thus, Penn used his connections among Whig and court groups on the English political scene to protect his fellow Quakers, his colony, and his proprietorship.

As the founder of Pennsylvania, he was the most successful of English proprietors and yet personally was a financial failure. He was a gentleman and a Quaker who could be contentious, particularly in religious debates, stubborn in maintaining his position against all opposition, and anything but humble in his lifestyle. In many ways, he was an uncommon and contradictory individual.

Penn’s place in American history rests on his success in helping establish one colony and in founding another. The name Pennsylvania, standing for “Penn’s woods,” continues as a reminder of his significance. Sometimes overlooked, but also important, are his contributions to the fundamental political traditions that Americans have come to take for granted.

Bibliography

Beatty, Edward C. O. William Penn as Social Philosopher. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. Reprint. New York: Octagon Books, 1975. Beatty examines Penn’s philosophical and social ideas, viewing him as a political theorist, statesman, pacifist, humanitarian, and family man.

Bronner, Edwin B. William Penn’s Holy Experiment: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681-1701. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962. Describes Penn’s vision for establishing Pennsylvania, contrasting his plans with the reality of their results.

Dunn, Mary Maples. “The Personality of William Penn.” American Philosophical Society Proceedings 127 (October, 1983): 316-321. Dunn portrays Penn as a restless rebel, a poor judge of people, and always the aristocrat.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. William Penn: Politics and Conscience. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967. Argues that Penn was a creative thinker who, along with others of his age, wrestled with the definition of constitutional government. The key to Penn’s political ideas was liberty of conscience; a key to his behavior was his desire to protect his title to Pennsylvania.

Endy, Melvin B., Jr. William Penn and Early Quakerism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973. Concentrates on Penn’s religious thought and its relationship to his political and social life. Evaluates his significance for early Quakerism.

Geiter, Mary K. William Penn. New York: Longman, 2000. Assesses Penn’s religious and political significance in America and Britain.

Kashatus, William C. A Virtuous Education: Penn’s Vision for Pennsylvania Schools. Harrisburg, Pa.: Morehouse Group, 1997. Describes how Penn established a community-supported educational system for his state.

Morgan, Edmund S. “The World and William Penn.” American Philosophical Society Proceedings 127 (October, 1983): 291-315. A good, brief discussion of Penn’s life that attempts to place his experiences in the context of English society. Emphasis is on Penn as a Protestant, a gentleman, and an Englishman.

Nash, Gary B. Quakers and Politics: Pennsylvania, 1681-1726. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968. New ed. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993. Concentrates on Penn’s conflicts with the settlers in Pennsylvania, as well as their problems with one another. Nash emphasizes the religious and economic background of the disagreements. Good source for information on the dynamics of early Pennsylvania politics as well as on Penn.

Peare, Catherine Owens. William Penn: A Biography. Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott, 1956. The standard modern work on Penn. A readable account with a sometimes excessively flowery style.

Penn, William. The Papers of William Penn. Edited by Mary Maples Dunn, Richard S. Dunn, et al. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981-1987. An essential collection of primary materials, with informative introductions and bibliography.