Zephaniah Kingsley Sr.

Zephaniah Kingsley, Sr. (April 11, 1734 - circa 1792) was an affluent British merchant, a loyalist during the American Revolution and one of the seven founders of the University of New Brunswick, Canada’s oldest English language university. He was the father of slave trader and plantation owner Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. and the grandfather of Anna McNeill Whistler — better known as "Whistler's Mother" in the painting Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 by her son (and Kingsley’s great-grandson) James McNeill Whistler.

Son of Elizabeth Wright and Benjamin Kingsley, Zephaniah was born in Leake (Lincolnshire, England) into a third-generation family of Quakers. As a young man, he moved to London to become a cloth merchant. There he met Isabella Johnston (possibly of Dumfries, Scotland), whom he married in 1763 at the Church of St Mary LeBow, in London. After a brief stay in London, the couple moved to Bristol, where Kingsley established a retail business. In 1768, Kingsley filed for bankruptcy, and the family moved back to London the following year.

Kingsley emigrated with his wife and children to Charlestown (Province of South Carolina) in December 1770. Within three years, he had become a successful merchant of imported goods, owning several high-end properties and entering into multiple business partnerships.

Kingsley remained loyal to Great Britain during the American Revolution. Before the fighting started, Kingsley endured many hardships as a result of his loyalty to the Crown. During the 1774 disturbances opposing the Tea Act, Kingsley (along with other merchants) was forced by a violent mob to dump his tea consignment into the water. Mobs intimidated loyalists, going house to house, tarring and feathering some, and pressuring them to leave. Despite such harassment, Kingsley refused to sign the loyalty oath required by the patriots.

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