Our annual Summer Fete, in collaboration with special guests from the world of heritage, will include activities for all the family. Join us in the lovely gardens of Leighton House Museum so bring a picnic!
Saturday 13th July 11am – 4pm
Suitable for children aged 5-11.
Visit Eventbrite to book your free tickets.
Wednesday April 17 2019, 5.30pm
Early morning on 17 April 1790, Benjamin Franklin died at his home in Philadelphia. Almost a generation older than most of America’s founders, he was the first to inspire a national, and indeed international, period of mourning. In arranging Franklin’s memorial, his own and Craven Street family set in place lasting ideas on remembrance and identity. Dr. Boudreau is a cultural historian focused on 18th century Anglo-America. His his Benjamin Franklin teacher workshops have received numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and he holds a 2019 post-doctoral fellowship at the George Washington Library at Mount Vernon. He is author of Independence: A Guide to Historic Philadelphia (2012).
£6 per person. Available via Eventbrite
Thursday April 4th 2019, 6.30pm – 8pm
Dr Perry Gauci,Tutor in Modern History at Lincoln College, Oxford University, will speak about the stormy public debates surrounding the first Blackfriars Bridge, which opened in 1769. The bridge caused deep divisions within the metropolis, but its completion highlighted how Londoners managed to find common cause in pursuit of civic improvement in Franklin’s day.
Tickets are £6 and available on Eventbrite
Wednesday 12th of June 2019, 6.30pm
As the 2020 presidential race gains momentum, Carol Gould, a political commentator since 2004, will discuss the current state of play in American politics, including race relations, international affairs, and (in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin) freedom of the press. Carol is author of ‘Don’t Tread on me – anti-Americanism Abroad’.
Wednesday 29th of May. 6:30pm
Dr. Márcia Balisciano, Director of Benjamin Franklin House will introduce Franklin’s British milieu, those who challenged and sustained him during his long London sojourn. Fellow members of the Lunar Society like Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin and Matthew Bolton, reformed rogues like Sir Francis Dashwood, and artists like the blind organist John Stanley will all feature in this illustrated talk.
£6 per person.
Tickets available via Eventbrite
Wednesday March 6th at 6:30pm
Introducing his new book, The Rise of Thomas Paine, Paul Myles will tell the story of how the relatively unknown Englishman-Paine- came to be thrust onto the international stage and his literary role in the American War of Independence.
Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite
Reviews
“This original and scholarly work explains the rise of Thomas Paine, who was chosen by a Commissioner of Excise, George Lewis Scott, to write The Case of the Officers of Excise, a work which identified and condemned the deep corruption within the English excise service, and called for the organization of workers to improve their pay and conditions. The origins of Paine’s links with figures such as Benjamin Franklin, so important when Paine moved to North America, is thereby explained”
-Professor Richard Whatmore University of St Andrews School of History
“Paul Myles has become the custodian of the reputation of Thomas Paine and this book is part of a remarkable job he is making of it.”- Melvyn Bragg
Thursday 16 & Friday 17 May, 6pm, 7pm & 8pm
The atmospheric rooms of Benjamin Franklin’s only remaining residence will be the feature of this night-time architectural tour, highlighting the original features of our Grade I listed Georgian townhouse in evening light.
£10/per person, drink included
Tickets available via Eventbrite
Join us for a celebration of Independence Day at Benjamin Franklin House. Enjoy cake and a glass of bubbly following a 30 minute tour of the world’s only remaining Franklin home. As a founder of the United States, Franklin was the only statesman to have signed all four documents that created a new nation, including The Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris, and The Constitution. The first of these was signed on 4 July 1776.
Join us at one of the following celebration times: 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3.15pm, and 4.15pm
£10/per person, refreshments included
Dr Nicholas Cole is a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University, who specialises in the political thought of early America and the creation of America’s political institutions. He leads the Quill Project, an interdisciplinary project which studies the processes of negotiation that created America’s political system. Their flagship project is a digital model of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, which provides an opportunity to reassess the importance of Franklin’s role in the creation of the American Federal System.
Wednesday 17 October, 6.30pm
Book your free tickets via eventbrite
Franklin & Grant: Americans Against Slavery
2018 Benjamin Franklin House Robert H. Smith Lecture in American Democracy- Dr. Márcia Balisciano, Director, Benjamin Franklin House
Franklin and Grant, two American historical figures not traditionally linked, traversed similar paths to fervent antislavery conviction, both of whom left an important imprint on American democracy.
The last public role of 18th century entrepreneur, author, scientist, diplomat and nation builder, Benjamin Franklin, was President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (1789- 1790). Franklin made a trajectory from acceptance to outspoken opponent of slavery by the end of his life. He rallied against abhorrent inhumanity for the enslaved and forecast a terrible toll for the new United States, a prediction borne out by the American Civil War (1861-1865).
Brilliant military general and eventual President, Ulysses S. Grant, traversed similar ground on the question of slavery. Though born into an anti-slavery family, he was initially apathetic, marrying into a slave-holding Southern family, but came to see moral purpose in perhaps his greatest role, as victor in the war that restored the American union.
Dr. Márcia Balisciano, historian and founding director of Benjamin Franklin House, will show the connections between two American leaders who left an indelible mark on modern America.
Thursday 4 October
Tickets to be booked through the Eccles Centre for American Studies, British Library
More details to follow
