John Penn (writer)
| John Penn | |
|---|---|
| 5th Chief proprietor of Pennsylvania | |
|
In office 1775–1776 |
|
| Preceded by | Thomas Penn (his father) |
| Succeeded by | none (American Revolution ended proprietorship) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 22 February 1760 London, England |
| Died | 21 June 1834 (aged 74) Stoke Poges, England |
| Profession | Inherited 75% interest in the Province of Pennsylvania, writer, governor of the Isle of Portland |
John Penn (or John Penn, Jr. or John Penn of Stoke) (22 February 1760 – 21 June 1834) was the chief proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania as of 1775 (now the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States) and a politician and writer. He and his cousin, John Penn ("John Penn, the Governor") held unsold property, of 24,000,000 acres (97,000 km2), which the Pennsylvania legislature confiscated after the American Revolution.
Penn lived in Philadelphia for five years after the Revolution, from 1783 to 1788, building a country house just outside the city. He returned to Great Britain in 1789 after receiving his three-fourths portion of £130,000, the compensation for the proprietorship by the Pennsylvania government. He and his cousin, John Penn, who remained a resident in US, received compensation from Parliament for their losses in the former colony.
In 1798, he was appointed as High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire and served as a Member of Parliament (1802-1805). He was appointed in 1805, as governor of the Isle of Portland. Also a writer, he published in a variety of genres.
He was born in London, England, the son of Thomas Penn and his wife Lady Juliana Fermor Penn (the daughter of Thomas Fermor, first earl of Pomfret), elder brother to Granville Penn, and a grandson of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. He studied at Eton College. On the death of his father in 1775, he succeeded to his father's interests, and inherited three quarters of the proprietorship of Pennsylvania. The other quarter of the propietorship belonged to his cousin, also named John Penn, the colonial governor of the province. The Penns later lost the proprietorship as a result of the American Revolution.
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