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Washington, Franklin, and the British

Please note this is a past event. View upcoming events and all past virtual talks here. 

Monday November 9th, 5pm BST/12pm EDT

George Goodwin discusses his latest research on George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the intelligence networks that shaped the War for Independence.

George Goodwin is Author in Residence at the Benjamin Franklin House in London. He is the author of Benjamin Franklin in London: The British Life of America’s Founding Father (Yale University Press) and contributor of the Benjamin Franklin entry in The Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington.

He is the recipient of two separate international research fellowships at the Robert H. Smith Center for Jefferson Studies, Monticello. This research project will provide a core element of his forthcoming book, Benjamin Franklin’s War: London, Paris and America’s Fight for Independence. Goodwin is an Eccles Centre Makin Fellow at the British Library, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a graduate of Cambridge University.

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Robert H Smith Family Foundation Lecture in American Democracy – Democracy and the Supreme Court: judges and the politicians

Please note this is a past event. View upcoming events and all past virtual talks here. 

Watch this lecture here.

Join us for the annual Robert H Smith Family Foundation lecture in American Democracy which aims to promote the importance of international diplomacy and democracy in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin as a diplomat and politician.

The settled position of law and the judges in our constitution has undergone very severe stress testing over the last five years, through Brexit and coronavirus.  Those two crises demonstrate the dominance of the executive, who as coronavirus demonstrates can change the law at will if circumstances demand it, and the dominance of politics – if the politicians don’t like the limits set by the law they will not only change the law, they may change the constitution to neuter the judges.  How much at risk is the rule of law?  And what should we do about it?  Has politics prevented us from defending the rule of law? The lecture will set out the threat which is real, the consequences which are dire, and the steps we can take both to form a coalition which defends the rule of law and the specific constitutional changes needed to embed the rule of law.

Charlie Falconer (@LordCFalconer) is an English qualified barrister and partner based in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s London office.  The former UK Lord Chancellor and first Secretary of State for Justice spent 25 years as a commercial barrister, becoming a QC in 1991.

Chaired by Paul Apostolidis, Associate Professorial Lecturer and Deputy Head of Department for Education in the Department of Government at LSE.

This event is hosted in partnership with the Department of Government (@LSEGovernment), the world-leading centre for study and research in politics and government.

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Franklin & Washington: Edward J. Larson in conversation with Dr. Márcia Balisciano

During their lifetimes and in the years since, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington have been the subject of great literary interest. Yet each has typically been a minor player in the chronicles of the other – until now. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward J. Larson’s new book, Franklin & Washington, uncovers the close relationship between these two principal founders of the United States. Professor Larson, University Professor of History and Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University, who was also an inaugural Fellow at the Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, will be in conversation with Dr. Márcia Balisciano, Director of the Benjamin Franklin House in London, the world’s only surviving Franklin home. On the table will be the genesis of Franklin and Washington’s friendship and its impact on the American story, and their legacies in a time of challenge.

Please note this is a past event. View upcoming events and all past virtual talks here. 

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘The Knife Man’ by Wendy Moore

Please note this is a past event. View upcoming events and all past virtual talks here. 

Join us for the October installment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes ​related to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th ​century, and American ​history.

This month we will be talking to Wendy Moore about her first book ‘The Knife Man’, a fascinating biography of the 18th century surgeon John Hunter. This celebrated anatomist was a contemporary of Dr William Hewson, a fellow resident of 36 Craven Street during Benjamin Franklin’s stay, who ran a private anatomy school from the garden. Both were trained by John’s elder brother William. In later years John advised Franklin on his health.

Revered and feared in equal measure, John Hunter was the most famous surgeon of eighteenth-century London. Rich or poor, aristocrat or human freak, suffering Georgians knew that Hunter’s skills might well save their lives but if he failed, their corpses could end up on his dissecting table, their bones and organs destined for display in his remarkable, macabre museum. Maverick medical pioneer, adored teacher, brilliant naturalist, Hunter was a key figure of the Enlightenment who transformed surgery, advanced biological understanding and even anticipated the evolutionary theories of Darwin. He provided inspiration both for Dr Jekyll and Dr Dolittle. But the extremes to which he went to pursue his scientific mission raised question marks then as now.

‘The Knife Man’ won the UK Medical Journalists’ Association Consumer Book Award and was short-listed for the Marsh Biography Award and the Saltire Award. Other titles by Wendy Moore include ‘Wedlock‘, ‘How to Create the Perfect Wife‘, ‘The Mesmerist’, and her latest publication ‘Endell Street’ tells the story of the suffragette doctors who ran a Military Hospital in the heart of London in World War One. Wendy is a prize-winning author and freelance journalist who has written for numerous national newspapers including the Guardian, Times, Sunday Telegraph and Express as well as for medical journals including the Lancet and BMJ. She is one of the members of the judging panel for the annual Benjamin Franklin House Literary Prize for young writers and you can watch her virtual talk on ‘Endell Street’ here.

You can buy ‘The Knife Man’ here.

Join us even if you don’t have a chance to read the book by the event date!

This event is free of charge but please consider making an online donation here to support the work of Benjamin Franklin House.

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘A World on Fire’ by Amanda Foreman

Please note this is a past event. View upcoming events and all past virtual talks here. 

Join us for the November installment of Ben’s Book Club, a monthly virtual gathering looking at themes ​related to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th ​century, and American ​history.

This month we will be talking to Dr Amanda Foreman about her brilliant narrative, ‘A World on Fire’, in which she tells the fascinating story of the American Civil War–and the major role played by Britain and its citizens in that epic struggle.

Between 1861 and 1865, thousands of British citizens volunteered for service on both sides of the Civil War. From the first cannon blasts on Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, they served as officers and infantrymen, sailors and nurses, blockade runners and spies. Through personal letters, diaries, and journals, Foreman introduces characters both humble and grand, while crafting a panoramic yet intimate view of the war on the front lines, in the prison camps, and in the great cities of both the Union and the Confederacy. In the drawing rooms of London and the offices of Washington, on muddy fields and aboard packed ships, Foreman reveals the decisions made, the beliefs held and contested, and the personal triumphs and sacrifices that ultimately led to the reunification of America.

‘A World on Fire’ was the winner of the Fletcher Pratt Award for Civil War History, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was selected for the New York Times Top Ten Books of 2011. Amanda Foreman is also the author of the best-selling ‘Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’. In 2016, Foreman served as chair of The Man Booker Prize. That same year, her BBC documentary series, ‘The Ascent of Woman’, was released. Currently, she is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal bi-weekly ‘Historically Speaking’ and an Honorary Research Senior Fellow in the History Department at the University of Liverpool. Her next book, ‘The World Made by Women’, is scheduled to be published by Penguin Random House in 2021.

You can buy ‘A World on Fire’ here.

Join us even if you don’t have a chance to read the book by the event date!

This event is free of charge but please consider making an online donation here to support the work of Benjamin Franklin House.

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(SOLD OUT) Open House London, Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 September

Open House London is the capital’s largest annual festival of architecture and design. This annual event allows the public to cross the threshold of some of London’s most interesting buildings, including Grade I, 1730s Benjamin Franklin House. Half-hourly guided tours will take place throughout the day.

Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September, 11.00am-4.30pm

Free – half-hourly tours run on a first come first served basis. Advance booking required.

Register here 

Donations welcome

Rules for a safe visit

All visitors will be required to wear masks while in the House except:

  • Children under 11
  • People with disabilities
  • Those with breathing difficulties
  • Anyone travelling with someone who relies on lip reading

Tour groups are limited to 4 people from separate households in line with social distancing measures.

Please refrain from touching public surfaces while in the House

Please do not enter the House if you feel unwell

Our staff is available should you need any assistance

For more information email info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org

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Virtual Talk: American Sheet Music at the British Library

Although once disregarded by historians as sentimental and ephemeral, today American sheet music is valued for the unique light it sheds upon the nation’s concerns and aspirations. In this talk, Eccles Centre for American Studies librarian Jean Petrovic will share items held at the British Library. She will consider how this music moved ‘from the sacred to the secular and from the timeless to the timely’ and will explore how songs associated with World War I and the movement for female suffrage captured, reflected – and possibly even shaped – the cultural and political zeitgeist.

Image: Marie Zimmerman, Votes for Women. Suffrage Rallying Song. Philadelphia: E.M. Zimmerman, 1915. British Library shelfmark: H.3992.r.(18)

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Virtual Talk: Benjamin Franklin and Black Lives Matter

Benjamin Franklin was born at a time when the abhorrent practice of slaveholding was common.  He was initially accepting of owning slaves, and came to London with two black servants, Peter and King, who became free on arrival in Britain.  His years on Craven Street led to a fundamental transformation. House Director, Dr. Márcia Balisciano, will explain how Franklin became the American founder who campaigned against slavery, spending his last days as the President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

This event was free to attend but we would ask attendees to consider making a voluntary donation here to support Benjamin Franklin House continue to share Franklin’s story as we begin to reopen to the public.

Watch the full talk and Q&A here:

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American Independence Day Tours

Join us for a special reopening celebration of Independence Day at Benjamin Franklin House and enjoy a 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.

Buy your tickets here.

Tours times are:

Saturday July 4th: 2pm and 3pm

Sunday July 5th: 2pm and 3pm

To ensure we keep everyone safe:

  • We are limiting group sizes to 4 people from separate households. If your group has more than 4 people from your household, please contact us at info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org or +44 207 839 2006 to arrange your booking
  • All staff and visitors (excluding those exempt under current UK government guidance) will be required to wear a mask inside the House – on entry, visitors will find a station with hand sanitiser, masks, and gloves
  • Our staff will be regularly cleaning the public areas throughout the days we are open to the public to ensure a safe environment

We look forward to welcoming you again to Benjamin Franklin’s only surviving home in fulfilment of our mission to bring history and innovation to life!

Benjamin Franklin House Team

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We’ve Reopened!

We are excited to announce that following new UK government guidelines on museums and galleries, Benjamin Franklin House will be reopening to the public with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

In celebration of American Independence Day, we will offer Architectural Tours from 2-4pm on 4 and 5 July.  Please make a booking for this special celebration here.

Following, we will be open Friday-Sunday, 12-5 for Architectural Tours from Friday, 10 July.  We hope to begin running our primary offering, the Historical Experience, before the close of summer.

Please make a booking for Architectural Tours here.

Changes to ensure the safety of visitors and staff

To ensure we keep everyone safe:

  • We are limiting group sizes to 4 people from separate households. If your group has more than 4 people from your household, please contact us at info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org or +44 207 839 2006 to arrange your booking
  • All staff and visitors (excluding those exempt under current UK government guidance) will be required to wear a mask inside the House – on entry, visitors will find a station with hand sanitiser, masks, and gloves
  • Our staff will be regularly cleaning the public areas throughout the days we are open to the public to ensure a safe environment

We look forward to welcoming you again to Benjamin Franklin’s only surviving home in fulfilment of our mission to bring history and innovation to life!

Benjamin Franklin House Team