Places
Benjamin Franklin's house
36 Craven St, London WC2N 5NF
Benjamin Franklin would first visit London as a young man in 1724 and would stay in the city for just about a year training as a printer. During this first visit to London, Franklin worked in a printing shop based in the chapel of the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, in Smithfield.
Benjamin Franklin returned to London in 1757 as a representative of the Assembly of Pennsylvania and was tasked with negotiating with the Proprietors of Pennsylvania. During the latter part of the 1760’s Franklin would find himself at odds with the British Government. The passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 was the beginning of this process. While the act was being condemned in the colonies, Franklin would prove instrumental in the repeal of the Stamp Act by being a key witness at a parliamentary hearing on the possibility of repealing the Stamp Act in 1766. In the 1770’s Franklin also began to write his autobiography while residing at Craven Street.
Arguably the most consequential moment of Franklin’s time in London were the Hutchinson Letters Controversy. The then Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson had been corresponding with famous Whig Politician George Grenville. These letters were given to Franklin in the aftermath of Grenville’s death. Franklin decided to release these letters, in the hope that they would help the British Government understand why the colonists resented the British Crown. Franklin was then charged with stealing the letters and was put on trial in 1774. It was during the trial that Franklin came to the famous conclusion that “he was an American living in Britain and not an Englishman living in America.”
Franklin would leave London for good in 1775.
Sulgrave Manor
George Washington’s Ancestral home located in Northhamptonshire.
The Manor was the ancestral home of George Washington’s family and is in Northamptonshire.
The Manor was built in the mid 1500’s and George Washington’s great-great-great-great-great grandfather Lawrence Washington and his family resided there.
Kew Palace
For a time the palace was home to King George III
The palace was built in 1631, originally at the behest of a wealthy London merchant. It was in this palace where King George III was held during his episodes of “madness.”
John Burgoyne’s House
10 Hertford Street, Mayfair, London, WIJ 7RL, City of Westminster
John Burgoyne would live in this house in the aftermath of the Saratoga Campaign, until his death in 1792.
After the war Burgoyne would become a successful playwright, famously writing The Heiress which debuted in January of 1786.
In August of 1792 Burgoyne would die while writing a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
John Adams House
9 Grosvenor Square
John Adams would live in London during his time as the first official minister of the government of the United States to the Court of St. James.
Adams would reside in this house during his appointment as minister (March 1785- May 1788). Aside from conducting his regular duties as ambassador, Adam’s daughter Abigail would also be married at the house.