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Family Event: Dress Like a Georgian!

Tuesday 26th July 2022 at (11am-12pm) & (1:30pm-2:30pm)

In this Family Event, explore the fashion and style of Georgian London. Join Polly, resident of 36 Craven Street during Benjamin Franklin’s time in the house as she guides you through the history of the House and the proper attire to wear inside it!

Interactive activities will explore the different dress codes of the day with an opportunity for children to make their own Georgian hat!

Most suitable for ages 5-11, but all are welcome!

If you would like to attend the Morning Session (11am-12pm) tickets are FREE and can be booked here!

If you would like to attend the Afternoon Session (1:30pm-2:30pm) tickets are FREE and can be booked here!

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Family Event: Inside Benjamin Franklin’s Georgian House!

Tuesday 31st May 2022 – (11am-12pm) & (1:30pm-2:30pm)

This Family Event is designed to introduce children (KS1-3) to Georgian architecture, design, and history as we explore the preserved rooms of Benjamin Franklin House.

We will begin with an interactive tour of 36 Craven Street that explores how each room would have been used almost 300 years ago! In the second half of the session, families will create their very own Georgian home in an arts and crafts workshop that builds on the knowledge gained during the initial tour.

Recommended ages are 7-11 – but everyone is welcome!

Due to popular demand, there are now two sessions available for booking;

If you would like to attend the Morning Session (11am-12pm) tickets are FREE and can be booked here!

If you would like to attend the Afternoon Session (1:30pm-2:30pm) tickets are FREE and can be booked here!

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Georgian Easter Celebration!

Join us for Easter-themed crafts and games. Take part in a special Easter egg hunt inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s inventions and scientific work.

Create an Easter card, decorate eggs and make Georgian Easter bonnets!

Tuesday 5th April 12.30pm-14.30pm.

Suitable for children aged 5-11.

Book a ticket now! Tickets can be found here.

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Ben’s Book Club: ‘The Gun, the Ship & the Pen’ by Linda Colley

Wednesday May 18 2022, 5pm BST/12pm ET. Register here.  

Join us for the May instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a quarterly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history.  

 This month we will be talking to Linda Colley about her book ‘The Gun, the Ship & the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World.’ Starting with the Corsican constitution of 1755, the book moves through every continent, disrupting accepted narratives and demonstrating how constitutions evolved in tandem with warfare, how they have functioned to advance empire as well as promote nations, and worked to exclude as well as liberate. 

Whether reinterpreting Japan’s momentous 1889 constitution, or exploring the significance of the first constitution to enfranchise all adult women on Pitcairn Island in the Pacific in 1838, this is one of the most original global histories in decades. 

Linda Colley is an expert on British, imperial and global history since 1700. She is currently Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University and a Long-Term Fellow in History at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala. She previously held chairs at Yale University and at the London School of Economics. 

Buy ‘The Gun, the Ship & the Pen’ 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: ‘Slave Empire’ by Padraic X. Scanlan

Wednesday February 23 2022, 5pm GMT/12pm ET. Register here.  

Join us for the February instalment of Ben’s Book Club, a quarterly virtual gathering looking at themes relating to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century, and American history.  

This month we will be talking to Padraic X. Scanlan about his book ‘Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain,’ which puts enslaved people at the centre the British empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

In intimate, human detail, the chapters show how British imperial power and industrial capitalism were inextricable from plantation slavery. With vivid original research and careful synthesis of innovative historical scholarship, Slave Empire shows that British freedom and British slavery were made together. 

Dr Padraic X. Scanlan is Assistant Professor in the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources and the Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto and a Research Associate at the Joint Centre for History and Economics at the University of Cambridge. He has also held appointments at the London School of Economics and Harvard University. 

Buy your copy of ‘Slave Empire’ 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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Family Day: Children’s Christmas Fair

Saturday 11 December, 10am-11.30am. Book your free tickets here.

We’ve teamed up with friends from across the heritage world to bring a range of fun festive craft ideas to you this December! Create paper wreaths and Christmas cards with Benjamin Franklin House. Make your own angel decorations with Arts & Crafts Hammersmith (William Morris Society and Emery Walker House) and construct a snow globe with Newington Green Meeting House. There’ll be festive snacks and we’ll also play some Christmas tunes on the glass armonica, a musical instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin while he lived in London!

Most suitable for ages 5-11.

COVID-19 Safety Precautions:

  • We are limiting bookings to 30 people so please book a ticket for each adult and child in your group
  • We will be managing the flow of people throughout the morning to ensure that there are only ever 10 visitors on each floor
  • Activities will take place in a well-ventilated historic space with hand sanitiser and sanitising wipes available
  • All staff and adult visitors are encouraged to wear a face covering

For further details, please contact our Education Manager.

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Thanksgiving at Benjamin Franklin House

25 November 2021, 12pm-5pm

It’s time to give thanks! Join us for this important American holiday and celebrate with a tour of Benjamin Franklin’s London home followed by pumpkin pie and a Thanksgiving Quiz in his parlour! Franklin, in addition to suggesting the turkey become one of America’s national symbols, practised cooking it as part of his early work on electricity.

Join us for tours at 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3.15pm, and 4.15pm to see this historic place and to enjoy all the festivities!

Tickets are £10/per person plus online booking fee, refreshments included.

Purchase tickets via Eventbrite here. 

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Live History Class for Kids: The 7 Years’ War

Thursday 9 December, 4.30pm GMT/11.30am ET. Register here for this 30-minute class.

Join our virtual history classes on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 4.30pm GMT to learn about to key events in early American history. Together we will uncover the past and develop historical skills!

In this class, we’ll find out about the 7 Year’s War when Britain and France went to war over the colonies. We’ll explore how this sewed the seeds of the American Revolution and create a timeline to help us remember the key stages of the conflict.

Activity materials: paper and pencil/pen

Most suitable for KS2 and KS3 (US Grades 2-8) but all ages welcome!

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Live History Class for Kids: The Original 13 Colonies

Thursday 11 November, 4.30pm GMT/11.30am ET. Register here for this 30-minute class.

Join our virtual history classes on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 4.30pm GMT to learn about to key events in early American history. Together we will uncover the past and develop historical skills!

In this class, we’ll discover how the original 13 colonies were founded then run and the industries which developed there. We’ll then create our own historic map of early America!

Activity materials: paper, pencil and coloured pencils

Most suitable for KS2 and KS3 (US Grades 2-8) but all ages welcome!

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Book Launch: ‘Washington at the Plow’ by Bruce A. Ragsdale

Tuesday 23 November, 1pm ET/6pm GMT. Register here to attend virtually or here to attend in person. 

Bruce A. Ragsdale will discuss his book, Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery which depicts the “first farmer of America” as a leading practitioner of the New Husbandry, a transatlantic movement that spearheaded advancements in crop rotation.

A tireless experimentalist, Washington pulled up his tobacco and switched to wheat production, leading the way for the rest of the country. He filled his library with the latest agricultural treatises and pioneered land-management techniques that he hoped would guide small farmers, strengthen agrarian society, and ensure the prosperity of the nation.

Slavery was a key part of Washington’s pursuits. He saw enslaved field workers and artisans as means of agricultural development and tried repeatedly to adapt slave labour to new kinds of farming. To this end, he devised an original and exacting system of slave supervision. But Washington eventually found that forced labor could not achieve the productivity he desired. His inability to reconcile ideals of scientific farming and rural order with race-based slavery led him to reconsider the traditional foundations of the Virginia plantation. As Bruce Ragsdale shows, it was the inefficacy of chattel slavery, as much as moral revulsion at the practice, that informed Washington’s famous decision to free his slaves after his death.

Bruce A. Ragsdale served for twenty years as director of the Federal Judicial History Office at the Federal Judicial Center. The author of A Planters’ Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia, he has been a fellow at the Washington Library at Mount Vernon and the International Center for Jefferson Studies.

You can order a hardcopy or e-book here (UK) or here (US).

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.