Franklin, Benjamin: Ocean no barrier to exchange of ideas

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Maxwell Craven continues his look at the Derby links of American statesman Benjamin Franklin.

John Whitehurst’s three wheel clock which is now in Derby Museum. It would originally have had a case

The panelled former dining room at 27 Queen Street, Derby, where John Whitehurst (whose picture can be seen on the wall) dined with American Benjamin Franklin

Scots-born scientist James Ferguson, who was a friend of John Whitehurst, held a series of lectures at Derby’s Shire Hall

WHITEHURST sent Franklin two other clocks with tidal chapters and round dials. Other exports to Franklin’s friends would have been highly likely, for all the people in this coterie promoted each other with refreshing enthusiasm.

Such clocks could well have been reasonably conventional but of extremely high quality with some novelty, not easily obtainable from the rather conservative American makers of the day.

Throughout most of their acquaintanceship, Whitehurst and Franklin exchanged ideas by mail, if not in person.

As early as 1763 (when Franklin was spending 18 months back in America) the Derby man had sent him a first draft of his ideas on the formation of the earth which was eventually published in 1778 as On the Original State and Formation of the Earth, followed by a rather better second edition in 1782.

It was this which established his immortality as father of British geology. Later, in 1775, when Franklin was again briefly in America, Whitehurst also sent him An Account of a Machine for Raising Water – his invention of the hydraulic ram, today an indispensable element of Third World aid operations – for comment before submitting it to the Royal Society, for which he got his FRS.

The regret is that we do not have Franklin’s replies, Whitehurst’s papers having vanished – those that he did not burn just before his death in 1788.

Whitehurst also wrote with more general messages, especially when the great man was back in America. In 1763 he asked Franklin to keep a fatherly eye on John Tunnicliffe, a farmer friend, who was emigrating from Kirk Langley to Pennsylvania.

He later discusses Harrison’s chronometer with him and sent the “most affectionate respects” of Boulton, Darwin, Tissington and others, not to mention his wife, Elizabeth, confirming the closeness of their friendship and the reality that Mrs Whitehurst had by that time been Franklin’s hostess at Derby.

A decade later, we find Whitehurst, ever keen to oblige friends, writing to enlist Franklin’s help in getting the Anglo-American artist Benjamin West to take on one of the four daughters of his neighbour, Fairfax Moresby, as an assistant, an introduction being effected by Franklin in London the following year.

Nor was this the first time, for three years before Franklin had brought Whitehurst’s friend John Powell – “a sober, worthy youth” – to see West. He had probably tried to persuade Joseph Wright (who seems to have had very few pupils) to take him and he ended up with Sir Joshua Reynolds – the Royal Academy President’s gain being the American artist’s loss!

Whitehurst spent most of his life recommending people to each other. I even suspect him of recommending Pickford to Franklin, for there is a two year gap in the Derby architect’s career around 1773.

I have more or less established he went to Ireland – where Whitehurst had strong connections – to oblige a member of the Lunar Society; could he, through Franklin’s good offices, have spent time in Philadelphia too?

Concerning Whitehurst’s Theory of the Earth, Franklin’s reply has survived: “Your new theory of the earth is very sensible and in most particulars quite satisfactory.

I cannot now give my sentiments fully on’t this ship is just sailing, but shall write to you at large from Boston, where I expect to be some time.”

Unfortunately, the full reply from Boston has not survived but, as the final version was not published for another 15 years, he no doubt suggested amendments!

Also at this time, Whitehurst was asking Franklin for American contacts with whom to share data on weather recording, then something of an enthusiasm with the Derby man. In 1767 he published, in the Transactions of the Royal Society, Thermometrical Observations at Derby based on these earlier readings. This exchange of correspondence was rounded off by him sending Franklin a thermometer.

Although there is no mention in the correspondence of the type or the reason why Franklin wanted one specifically by his old friend in Derby, rather than one made in America, it is possibly connected with his weather recordings, although Professor Jonathan Powers has suggested to me it might be connected with Franklin’s then interest in monitoring the temperature of the Gulf Stream – highly relevant in today’s world!

Along with the thermometer, Whitehurst also sent the American some Derby porcelain he had ordered when visiting Derby the previous year. Another person with strong links to Derby and this group was the feckless but ingenious Peter Perez Burdett, who surveyed and brought out the first one inch map of Derbyshire in 1767 – only the second ever such modern survey map to this scale.

He spent much time travelling to London and the Continent and Whitehurst used him extensively to carry messages to Franklin.

Burdett himself corresponded with Franklin for 15 years.

Franklin went on to sign the Declaration of Independence and was a member – at 81 – of the first Continental Congress, although almost all his very enlightened ideas for a constitution for the USA were rejected by his peers.

This, though, did not rankle and he retired in 1788 to his house in Philadelphia.

Franklin’s last act before he died in 1790 was to sign a memorandum from the state legislature of Pennsylvania to Congress reminding them that they should pursue the abolition of slavery.

This fits in well with the views of his Derby friends, especially Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood. Thomas Gisborne of St Helen’s House was by then working tirelessly with his friend William Wilberforce to get slavery abolished here.

Despite Britain taking up the abolitionist cause with reasonable despatch, though, the dying Franklin’s appeals were ignored in his homeland and so continued for a further 72 years. Even then it took a long and bloody civil war to resolve the deadlock.

This giant of the formative period in America’s history thus had many and strong Derby ties. The two buildings we know he stayed in (Whitehurst’s homes) still stand. Unlisted 27 Queen Street, even still boasts the magnificent panelled dining room where he and Whitehurst undoubtedly sat smoking over dinner but, unfortunately, it’s derelict, undefended against villains and in the hands of a developer.

It would be good in this the 300th anniversary year of the great man’s birth, to find ways to celebrate yet another potent American connection with our city.