William Penn lived in Rickmansworth on the site currently occupied by the Three Rivers Museum. Penn’s name may not be familiar, but you have probably heard of his namesake: the American province of Pennsylvania.
In 1666, Penn was sent to Ireland to manage the family landholdings, and it was there that he first encountered Quakerism and began to attend Quaker meetings. When his father learned of his conversion to Quakerism, he withheld his son’s inheritance.
Quakers believe that all human beings are equal under God, a belief antithetical to absolute monarchy which stated that the monarch was divinely appointed by God. Therefore, Quakers were treated as heretics.
Penn returned to England to settle in Rickmansworth. He married his first wife at King John’s Farm in Chorleywood in April 1672. During his years at Rickmansworth, he began preaching and his home was used to accommodate many other famous preachers on their travels, most notably George Fox, the founder of the Quaker faith.
Penn was imprisoned in the Tower of London after writing a pamphlet criticising all religious groups except Quakers, who he perceived as the only true Christian group living in England at that time. He was placed in solitary confinement and threatened with a life sentence, but was released after eight months.
With conditions deteriorating between Quakers and other religious groups, Penn made a proposal to the King: a mass emigration of English Quakers.
In 1677, a group of prominent Quakers, including Penn, purchased the colonial province of West Jersey (half the current state of New Jersey). 200 settlers from the towns of Chorleywood and Rickmansworth and other towns in nearby Buckinghamshire travelled to the New World, and founded the town of Burlington.
With this foothold in place, Penn pressed his case to extend the Quaker region. The King granted a generous charter which made Penn one of the largest private landowners, with over 45,000 square miles. Penn was granted sovereign rule of the territory with all rights and privileges, except the right to declare war.
Penn first called the area New Wales, then Sylvania (Latin for woods), which Charles II changed to Pennsylvania in honour of Penn’s father, Admiral Penn.
Penn drafted a charter of liberties, creating a political utopia guaranteeing free and fair trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from unjust imprisonment and free elections. Other persecuted minorities were attracted, including Huguenots, Amish and Jews.
In 1701, when Penn and his family returned to their homeland, they became embroiled in financial and family troubles. Penn’s financial advisor, Philip Ford, had cheated him out of thousands of pounds by concealing and diverting rents from Penn’s lands in Ireland. When Ford died, his widow, Bridget, threatened to sell Pennsylvania, to which she could prove title. In desperation, Penn tried to sell Pennsylvania to the Crown before Bridget got wind of his plan, but he could not strike a deal.
Penn landed in debtors’ prison, and was then placed under house arrest. After he was released, he suffered a stroke. He died penniless in 1718 and was buried in the cemetery of the Jordans Quaker meeting house near Chalfont St Giles.
After Penn’s death, his wife, Hannah Callowill Penn, administered the province of Pennsylvania for eight years. She is the first woman to be granted the status of Honourary Citizen of the United States, awarded by Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers adapted Penn’s theory of an amendable constitution and his vision that all persons are equal under God in forming the federal government following the American Revolution.
Basing House in Rickmansworth, where Penn lived, became a school in 1839. It was later purchased by Dr Roderick William Henderson, who added wings to the house at either end; he was also responsible for setting up the first fire station in Rickmansworth. In 1930 the house was turned into council offices, and the Three Rivers Museum has occupied the site since 1992.
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