Franklin, Benjamin
17 January 1706 – 17 April 1790
A Founding Father of the United States
Visited Hayes several times to try to prevent the American Revolution.
In 2025, the United States of America commemorate the 250-year anniversary of the start of the American Revolutionary War. The war started on 19 April 1775, and it may surprise you to discover that the village of Hayes played a part in the events leading up to the outbreak of this conflict that still shapes the world we live in today. Benjamin Franklin, an American founding father, who appears on the $100 US Dollar note, visited Hayes on four separate occasions in the months leading up to the war.
Franklin was a politician and scientist who, amongst other things, invented the lightning rod. He spent many years living in London in the period before the American Revolution, influencing politics regarding British policy in America on behalf of the colonies.
At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Hayes was the home of former Prime Minister, William Pitt the Elder, by then elevated to the title Lord Chatham, and of his teenage son and future Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger.
The Nerve Centre of the Nation
During Pitt the Elder’s time in Hayes, ‘The Great Commoner’, as he was known, was visited by some of the most famous and influential names in history, and this included Benjamin Franklin, as he colluded with Lord Chatham to avoid revolution in the American colonies.
Earlier in his career, as Secretary of State for the Southern Department, a kind of Foreign Secretary of its time, Pitt the Elder had masterminded the British victory in The Seven Years War while living in Hayes. Pitt was often ill and so spent much time governing and leading the war effort from his country retreat at Hayes Place. Hayes was referred to as “The nerve centre of the nation” (Yes, seriously!). Famous victories in North America, at Louisburg in 1758 and Quebec in 1759, had made Pitt a national hero on both sides of the Atlantic.
General James Wolfe, born in Westerham, travelled to Hayes to meet with Pitt the night before his departure for Canada, where he defeated the Marquis de Montcalm’s French forces at Quebec, but heroically lost his life in doing so. Montcalm died too. It was said in 1759 that “Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories” and the bells of St. Mary’s in Hayes Church will have rung most proudly. 1759 also saw the birth in Hayes of William Pitt the Younger, and he was baptised at St. Mary’s Church, Hayes. Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania was named in honour of Pitt the Elder and later developed into the city of Pittsburgh.
Be To Her Virtues Very Kind
By 1774, after being plagued by ill health, and a disastrous spell as Prime Minister, Lord Chatham’s political influence had greatly diminished and his views on taking a more tolerant approach in America were in the minority on the British side of the Atlantic. He had opposed the Stamp Tax and defended his position vigorously. In a famous speech, Chatham urged Parliament to apply the words of a well-known popular ballad, about a man’s behaviour to his wife, to the behaviour of the colonies; “Be to her faults a little blind. Be to her virtues very kind”.
Pitt did not support independence for America, but he had long supported a more sympathetic approach. Franklin held a similar position when they met.
Franklin Visits Hayes
In August 1774, returning from a trip to Brighton, then called Brighthelmstone, Benjamin Franklin stopped in Kent to have dinner with his friend Charles Mahon (later 3rd Earl Stanhope) who, quite unexpectedly, told Franklin that Lord Chatham was seeking an interview with him to discuss American affairs. The next morning Franklin took Stanhope’s carriage to meet with Lord Chatham at Hayes Place.
Dr. Franklin gave an interesting account of their meeting, the first time they had met. He wrote that the “truly great man”, Lord Chatham, “received me with abundance of civility, inquired particularly into the situation of affairs in America, spoke feelingly of the severity of the late laws against the Massachusetts, gave me some account of his speech in opposing them, and expressed great regard and esteem for the people of that country, who he hoped would continue firm and united in defending by all peaceable and legal means their constitutional rights. I assured him that I made no doubt they would do so; which he said he was pleased to hear from me, as he was sensible I must be well acquainted with them”.
Lord Chatham talked of “restoring the ancient harmony of the two countries which he most earnestly desired”. Before leaving Hayes, Franklin promised to keep Lord Chatham advised of any important intelligence that might arrive from America. Several months passed before they met again and in this time the politics further intensified. Pitt the Elder’s daughter, Hester, married Franklin’s friend, Charles Mahon, later 3rd Earl Stanhope, at Hayes on 19 December 1774. The wedding is recorded in the Hayes Parish Church register but took place at ‘The Earl of Chatham’s’ by special licence. On 26 December 1774, Franklin journeyed out from London to visit Hayes again.
Franklin wrote of Pitt that Chatham received him “with an affectionate kind of respect, that from so great a man was extremely engaging”. Chatham suggested his intention to prepare something to present to Parliament, if his health permitted, and on 19 January 1775, he invited Franklin to attend the House of Lords with him the following day, which he did, to witness Chatham urging the Lords to withdraw British troops from Boston, Franklin’s birthplace. This was Chatham’s first major speech in Parliament for some years and he made a very public demonstration of his relationship with Franklin in the lobby beforehand.
Franklin travelled out to Hayes again on the 27 January 1775, recording that “I took a post-chaise about nine o’clock, and got to Hayes about eleven; but my attention being engaged in reading a new pamphlet, the post-boy drove me a mile or two beyond the gate. His Lordship being out on an airing in his chariot, had met me before I reached Hayes, unobserved by me, turned and followed me, and not finding me there, concluded, as he had seen me reading, that I had passed by mistake, and sent a servant after me”. They discussed Chatham’s upcoming bill to be presented at Westminster. Franklin dined with the Pitt family and returned to London that evening.
On Sunday 29 January 1775, Chatham paid a visit to Franklin’s London home at Craven Street, near to Charing Cross, arriving at Franklin’s residence in his very recognisable coach. Chatham and Franklin talked for more than two hours, and his visit coincided with people coming out of a nearby church which set Londoners gossiping. At this time, Lord Chatham was regarded as a national institution. He travelled in his coach and six horses, with a livery of distinctive blue and silver, often with outriders and other coaches in procession. It must have been a sight to behold as he travelled from Hayes on his way to Westminster or to the City.
Franklin made a final trip to Hayes on 31 January and the following day, 1st February, Chatham presented a bill to Parliament in the hope of resolving American differences, as Franklin watched on from the gallery.
Franklin Returns To America
Chatham had some support from his dwindling allies, but his proposals were defeated. Franklin was full of admiration for Chatham, but his bill fell short of what he wanted to see. In ‘Benjamin Franklin in London’, the author George Goodwin says that “Chatham had the vision but not the personal strength at the optimum time to settle the American question”. The mutual loathing of the various political factions during the unstable British politics of the time played a big part.
Franklin knew this was the last chance of a resolution through Parliament and he soon escaped to America to avoid likely arrest. Chatham and Franklin would not meet again. Their machinations at Hayes could not prevent the path of the American Revolution. By the end of March, Franklin had departed from London to return to America by boat from Plymouth. He arrived in Philadelphia on 5 May 1775 to news that, while he was at sea, the first engagements of the American revolution had taken place at Lexington and Concord.
Franklin’s Legacy and The Death of Chatham
Franklin became one of the ‘Founding fathers’ of the United States of America. On 11th June 1776, he was appointed as a member of the “Committee of Five” who drafted the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted on 4th July 1776. Franklin was the eldest of the fifty-six men who signed it. Victory for the patriots was far from assured at this stage and Franklin is reputed to have said on signing the declaration that “we must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately”.
Benjamin Franklin was the only person to sign all four of the documents that helped to create the United States of America. These were the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Treaty of Alliance, Amity and Commerce with France in 1778, the Treaty of Peace between England, France and the United States in 1782, and finally, the US Constitution in 1787. He died in 1790 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Lord Chatham was always grateful and sympathetic to the American colonists for the part they played in his greatest triumph during The Seven Years War. In a speech to the House of Lords on 18 November 1777, he said “If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never! never! never!”
On 7th April 1778, the ageing and ailing Lord Chatham collapsed whilst making a speech about the American colonial revolutionaries to the House of Lords as his son, William Pitt the Younger, looked on. He was removed to Hayes, where he lingered on for a month until he finally died at Hayes Place on 11 May 1778. Chatham would not live to see America finally lost to Britain but, after it was, it is notable that the eventual peace treaty with the United States was the work of Chatham’s most loyal friends and allies.
The Treaty of Paris was signed in Paris by United States and British Representatives on 3 September 1783, officially ending the American Revolutionary War and recognising the thirteen American colonies as free, sovereign and independent states. William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister just a few months later, on 19 December 1783. He was 24 years old and would be Prime Minister for over 18 years in total.
The Hayes road names of Pittsmead Avenue, Chatham Avenue, Wolfe Close, Montcalm Close and Stanhope Avenue, commemorate some of the names associated with this story.
Further Information
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin in London: The British Life of America’s Founding Father, by George Goodwin.
Founders Online Website: www.archives.gov
Benjamin Franklin’s House, at 36 Craven Street, London WC2, is his only surviving home and is worth a visit. www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org
This article is by Nick Goddard who was born in Beckenham and has lived in Hayes since 2001. He recently became a committee member of the Hayes Village Association.