Francis Rawle

Francis Rawle (1660 – 5 March 1727), originally from England, was a Quaker and colonist in Philadelphia, where he served in administrative positions and was a member of the assembly.

He was born in England in 1660, son of Francis Rawle, and came of an old Cornish family of some wealth and standing, settled at one time near St Juliot, and later in the neighbourhood of Plymouth. Both father and son were Quakers, and were persecuted for their religious belief, being imprisoned together at Exeter in 1683 (Joseph Besse, Sufferings of the Quakers, i. 163). Because of this they obtained a grant from William Penn, left Plymouth in the ship Desire, and arrived in Philadelphia on 23 June 1686.

Rawle first settled on 2,500 acres in Plymouth Colony, where he founded the society known as the Plymouth Friends. Subsequently he moved to Philadelphia. In 1688 he became a justice of the peace and judge of the court of common pleas; under the Charter of 1691 for the City of Philadelphia, he was one of six aldermen of Philadelphia; in 1692 he became deputy registrar of wills, and in 1694 commissioner of property. He served in the assembly 1704–1708 and 1719–1726, and while a member sat upon most of the important committees of the house, such as that on currency (1725). On 6 May 1724 he was appointed to the Pennsylvania Provincial Council by Sir William Keith, 4th Baronet. He died in Philadelphia on 5 March 1727.

In 1721 he published Some Remedies proposed for restoring the Sunk Credit of the Province of Pennsylvania, with some Remarks on its Trade. In 1725 he published Ways and Means for the Inhabitants of Delaware to grow Rich.

Rawle married, in 1689, Martha, daughter and heiress of Penn's friend Robert Turner, and left children, from whom sprang a leading family in the United States.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Harris, Charles Alexander (1896). "". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 47. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 323. 

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