Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Penn, Richard
PENN, RICHARD (1736–1811), colonist, second son of Richard Penn (d. 1771), by his wife Hannah, daughter of Richard Lardner, M.D., was born in 1736. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was his grandfather, and John Penn (1729–1795) [q. v.] his elder brother. In 1771 he was appointed by his uncle, Thomas Penn [q. v.], and his father, two of the first proprietaries of Pennsylvania, to be deputy-governor of the province during the absence of his brother John in England. He arrived in Philadelphia on 16 Oct. 1771, and occupied the post until the return of John in August 1773. His care of the commercial interests of the province, and his conciliatory manner with the Indians, made him popular. He returned to England in 1775, carrying with him a petition from congress, which was laid before the House of Lords on 7 Nov. 1775. Penn was also examined before them as to the wish of the colonies for independency (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. ii. 58). On 9 April 1784 he was elected member of parliament for the borough of Appleby, Westmoreland, and represented it until 20 Dec. 1790, when he was returned for Haslemere, Surrey. From 1796 until 1802 he sat for the city of Lancaster, and in the latter year was again chosen for Haslemere. He died at his house at Richmond on 27 May 1811.
Penn married Mary, daughter of William Masters of Philadelphia, about 1775; by her he had two daughters, and the two sons mentioned below.
His elder son, William Penn (1776–1845), entered St. John's College, Cambridge, but left without a degree. He published anonymously, when only seventeen, ‘Vindiciæ Britannicæ: being Strictures on’ Gilbert Wakefield's ‘Spirit of Christianity,’ London, 1794, 8vo. Penn issued an ‘Appendix to Vindiciæ Britannicæ: in answer to the Calumnies of the “Analytical Review,”’ London, 1794, 8vo. He wrote verse and prose for the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ under the signature of the Rajah of Vaneplysia (an anagram of Pennsylvania), and for the ‘Anti-Jacobin.’ But extravagance and conviviality ruined his prospects. The Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV) said of him that he was a pen often ‘cut’ (i.e. drunk) but never mended. After passing much of his time in the debtors' prison, he died in Nelson Square, Southwark, on 17 Sept. 1845. He was buried in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, beside his great-great-grandfather, Admiral Sir William Penn [q. v.]
The younger son, Richard Penn (1784–1863), entered the colonial office. A cipher which he arranged for use in despatches is illustrated in his pamphlet ‘On a New Mode of Secret Writing,’ 1829. He possessed a quaint humour, and wrote ‘Maxims and Hints for an Angler, and Miseries of Fishing,’ illustrated by Sir Francis Chantrey [q. v.], London, 1833, to which is added ‘Maxims and Hints for a Chess Player,’ with portrait-caricatures of the author and Sir Francis, by the latter (Quarterly Review, lxxxv. 92 n.) An enlarged edition was published in 1839, and another, containing ‘Maxims and Hints on Shooting,’ appeared in 1855. Penn was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 18 Nov. 1824. He died, unmarried, at Richmond, Surrey, on 21 April 1863 (Gent. Mag. 1863, pt. i. p. 800). A portrait, by E. W. Eddis, was engraved in 1834 by M. Ganci.
[Gent. Mag. 1811 pt. i. p. 675, 1845 pt. ii. p. 535; manuscript note in Brit. Mus. copy of Vindiciæ; Colonial Records, ix. 783, x. 91; Watson's Annals, p. 125; Return of Members of Parliament, ii. 183, 194, 204, 222; Pennsylvania Register, ed. Hazard, ii. 26; Minutes of the Provincial Council, ix. 780; Gordon's Hist. of Pennsylvania, 13, 474; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. pp. 220, 225; Coleman's Pedigree of the Penn Family; Pennsylvania Magazine, v. 5, 197, 198.]