Posted on 01/17/2006 5:16:05 PM PST by Pharmboy
Benjamin Franklin, Londoner. The U.S. founding father lived in the British capital for almost two decades before the American Revolution, working to bridge the widening gap between the colonies and the crown. After decades of neglect and a $5.3 million restoration, his house was unveiled to the public Tuesday as a museum dedicated to a revolutionary who spent years trying to keep Britain and its American colonies united.
"He wasn't very successful, but he sowed the seeds of the Anglo-American special relationship," said Marcia Balisciano, director of the Benjamin Franklin House museum.
U.S. Ambassador Robert H. Tuttle and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw cut a red, white and blue ribbon Tuesday - the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth - to formally open the 18th-century brick home.
The house where Franklin worked, did scientific experiments and invented a musical instrument called the glass armonica will be open by appointment beginning Wednesday. Regular hours start in February.
Franklin lodged in the four-story brick building just off Trafalgar Square from 1757-1762 and from 1764-1775, acting as a diplomat on behalf of American colonists.
He shared the home at 36 Craven St. with landlady Margaret Stevenson, her daughter Polly and, for a time, Polly's husband William Hewson, a surgeon who ran an anatomy school at the house. Hundreds of human bones were found in the basement during excavations in the 1990s.
Balisciano said the house, a center of the 18th-century intellectual ferment known as the Enlightenment, was "stuffed to the brim with people." Temporary residents included Franklin's niece, his illegitimate grandson and the economist Adam Smith.
Franklin's 20th-century biographer, Carl Van Doren, noted that he was less a lodger than the head of the household, "living in serene comfort and affection."
The house - which curators call the "first de facto U.S. Embassy" - was the site of many of Franklin's scientific experiments, including the invention of bifocal glasses and the ethereal-sounding glass armonica, for which Beethoven and Mozart composed pieces.
"Each of the rooms tells a different part of Franklin's life in London," said Balisciano.
She said curators were driven by "what would have interested Franklin, who said 'I was born 200 years too soon.' "
Used as a hotel until World War II and then as offices for non-profit groups, the house was almost derelict when the British government gave it to a charitable trust in the 1970s. The trust spent eight years renovating the building, which now includes a multimedia "historical experience," an archive of Franklin's papers and a student science center.
The rooms, restored to the austere wood floors and painted paneling of their 18th-century heyday, include the parlor in which Franklin - a great fan of fresh air - sat "air bathing" naked by the open windows.
Balisciano said it was fitting that the only surviving Franklin home in the world was in Britain. Franklin - who was born in Boston and made his home in Philadelphia for most of his life - spent much of his time in London working to prevent a split that, by the time he left, he came to see as inevitable.
"He really believed that the ties that bound the two nations were stronger than what pulled them apart," Balisciano said.
The English are a rare breed indeed...file this under the same factor that had them bury Charles Darwin at a conspicuous spot in their national cathedral, Westminster Abbey!
A special ping for you, lad...
Happy B-Day Ben. We need more men like you in the world today.
Everyone needs to read the book 1776 its excellent and very telling.
The Washington Family Coat of Arms
(the original family name was D'Wessington; they were Norman/French who came to England in the 13th Century and settled near Newcastle upon Tyne. This is where the logo on the Washington, DC license plate comes from).
Please freepmail me to get ON or OFF this RevWar/Colonial History/Gen. Washington ping list...
BTTT
My family came from Kent,England in 1803 to the US and been here ever since. My loyalties are always with the US but I would also defend my ancestors homeland if need arose.
Where's the Christian outrage?
< /sarc?>
First time I got off the plane in England I felt like I was at home...and all i have is a bit of Scottish blood on my dad's side!
Yes...Ben liked the ladies, no question. But remember (and I am NOT making the case for immorality here) this was before Victorian times and before reborn Christianity took hold in the States. There were many randy men (and women) back then...life--for many--was one big shtupfest back then.
Better a randy Franklin, than John Adams. Adams is the kind of guy who makes me want to show up at family re-unions in a torn suit with two strippers, waving a half empty bottle of Remy...
No question you and I would have rather gone out drinking with Ben. But Adams was of Puritan stock, and had an amazing wife. They were quite happy...as was Franklin.
I had an amazing wife the Bain of my life, old John was P whipped,
Ben was also the "poor kid" out of the bunch...
I wish we had photos.
A link to the photo gallery:
http://www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org/site/sections/about_house/gallery.htm
Thank you, Bunny Slippers, appreciated.
Grrr .. I think I messed up. :(
That of course is if you consider the floor of a side chancel walkway a conspicuous spot.
How appropriate for the failed med school drop-out and the equally unaccomplished theologian, Darwin. I make it a formal practice to wipe my feet on Darwin's grave marker on every one of the many occasions I have had the privilege to visit the Abbey. Each of my children in fact have had the same pleasure as well.
Thankfully, Sir Isaac Newton, a real scientist, is buried and memorialized in an exquisite and conspicuously visible place in full view as one faces the altar on the left.
( :-D
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