Benjamin Vaughan

Vaughan was born in Jamaica to Samuel Vaughan, a British banker and West India merchant planter of Irish Protestant descent, and his Anglo-American wife, Sarah Hallowell, daughter of shipbuilder, Benjamin Hallowell.[2]

He was educated at Newcome's School and Warrington Academy and attended Trinity Hall, Cambridge, without graduating.[3] He then studied Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. In 1785, during his stay in Edinburgh, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Allan Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank, Dugald Stewart, and James Hutton.[4]

His broader long-term interest was in politics and sciences: the latter leading to his friendship with Benjamin Franklin.[5] In 1786, Vaughan was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, to which his father, Samuel Vaughan, had been elected a member two years prior.[6]

Vaughan was a political economist, merchant and medical doctor. Through Benjamin Horne, brother of John Horne, he met the politician Lord Shelburne.[7] Shelburne then used Vaughan in a diplomatic role, to try to bring peace between Great Britain and the United States, towards the end of the American War of Independence. He was also a middleman in reconciling Franklin and Shelburne.

He was elected at a by-election in 1792 as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the borough of Calne in Wiltshire, and held the seat until the 1796 general election (however was absent from 1794). He spoke in parliament in strong defence of slavery in Jamaica, in his maiden speech. However, in February 1794, he came out in favour of the abolition of the slave trade.[3] He felt that since slaves could no longer be repressed by ignorance and fear, they should be given inducements not to rebel.[3] During his period in London he lived in Finsbury Square. He was arrested in 1794 on grounds of treason, regarding the supposed invasion of England by the French.[8]

After 1794, Vaughan left France for Switzerland and later to America. His interest in republicanism lead to his permanent departure from Britain. He settled in Boston and then on a farm in Hallowell, Maine in 1797.

In 1802 he inherited further sugar and coffee plantations in the West Indies (and several hundred slaves) following the death of his father. A codicil in the will instructed the estates to be liquidated within 7 years and the funds invested in government stock. He did not meet this requirement. Benjamin was also instructed that the sums paid would deduct sums "owed" due to losses on the slave ships "Europa" and "Bella Juditta".[2]

He is thought to be the builder (or related to the builder) of Hallowell House in Boston, and it is possible his Jamaican links give rise to the district being called Jamaica Plain.[9]

In 1805, Vaughan was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,[10] and in 1813, he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.[11]

In the Jamaican slave uprising of 1831 the huge family sugar estate of Flamstead, which he still co-owned with his siblings, was burnt to the ground and 407 slaves escaped. The smaller coffee estate of Vaughan's Field with 64 slaves was also destroyed. At its peak Flamstead had around 450 slaves, and Vaughansfield 79. Following destruction of the estates the Vaughan family sold the estates. Vaughansfield was then rebuilt by Knott & Hamilton.[12][13] The Flamstead estate grew the world famous Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee as well as sugar. The former estate now forms part of the Holywell National Park. The name Holywell appears a corruption of the family name Hallowell.[14]

He died in Hallowell in 1835.

Vaughan married Sarah Manning in 1781 and had several children:

• William Oliver Vaughan
• Petty Vaughan

The family and their descendants remained in Maine after Vaughan settled in Hallowell in 1797[15] and continue to reside in the town today.[16]

John Vaughan and William Vaughan were his brothers.

Several places are named after Vaughan:

• City of Vaughan, Ontario is named in his honour
• Indirectly Vaughan Road is linked to him as the northern end of the road headed into then Township of Vaughan.
• Vaughan Road Academy, name after Vaughan Road
• Vaughan Stream in Hallowell, Maine[17]
• Vaughan Field in Hallowell
• Vaughan Homestead, his Hallowell estate, now a museum