Joseph Galloway

Galloway was born near West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, the son of a landowner in the colony. He moved with his father to Pennsylvania in 1749 where he received a liberal schooling. He studied law, for a time alongside William Franklin, the son of Benjamin Franklin and later a fellow Loyalist,[1] and he was admitted to the bar and began to practice law in Philadelphia.

Galloway married Grace Growdon on October 18, 1753, at Philadelphia.

Galloway was a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly from 1756 to 1774 and served as speaker of the House from 1766 to 1774.[2] He was a prominent member of the faction which opposed Pennsylvania being a proprietary colony of the Penn family, and he called for it to be turned into a crown colony. He was a British-American nationalist, believing that most Americans would prefer to remain loyal to the Crown if only they were given a legitimate and effective government that would inspire their loyalty.[3]

Galloway was a member of the Continental Congress in 1774, where he proposed a compromise plan for Union with Great Britain which would provide the colonies with their own parliament subject to the Crown. The Continental Congress rejected it by one vote. He signed the Continental Association, while he was opposed to independence for the Thirteen Colonies and remained loyal to the king.[2] He was a resident of Philadelphia and an associate of Benjamin Franklin with whom he corresponded over the issues of American independence.[4] In 1768, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society, which Franklin founded, and served as vice president of the organization from 1769 to 1776.[5]

Galloway urged reform of the imperial administration and was critical of the trade laws, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Townshend Acts enacted in 1767, and he had a conciliatory plan to end the disputes between Britain and the colonies. He believed that the British had the right to tax and govern the colonies, keep the peace, and help the colonies to survive and flourish. Congress voted to expunge Galloway's plan from their journal, so he published it himself in 1775, reprimanding Congress for ignoring his analysis of Parliament's powers and colonial rights. He proposed a written constitution and joint legislature for the whole British Empire.[3]

In 1775, the Assembly rejected Galloway's urging that it abandon its struggle for independence from Britain, so Galloway left the Assembly and the Congress.[6] In the winter of 1777, he joined British General William Howe and accompanied him on his Philadelphia campaign. During the British occupation of Philadelphia, he was appointed superintendent of police and headed the civil government.[3] He aggressively organized the Loyalists in the city, but the British army was driven out of the city in 1778 following France's entry into the war. The British army retreated to New York, and Galloway went with them.

In 1778, he fled to Britain with his daughter, never to return to the United States, and he became a leading spokesman of American Loyalists in London. The General Assembly of Pennsylvania convicted him of high treason and confiscated his estates, which included Trevose Manor, now known as Growdon Mansion, and much of the land that is now Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania.[2] In 1779, he appeared as a government witness in a parliamentary enquiry into the conduct of Lord Howe and General Howe during the Philadelphia Campaign, of which he was deeply critical.[7] When Galloway fled Philadelphia with the British, his wife Grace remained in the city with the hope of retaining the rights of their property. They expected that she would be able to join her daughter and husband afterwards, but Charles Willson Peale evicted her.[8]

Galloway was influential in convincing the British that a vast reservoir of Loyalist support could be tapped by aggressive leadership, thus setting up the British invasion of the South. After the war, he spent his remaining years in religious studies and writing.[2] He died a widower in Watford, Hertfordshire on August 10, 1803; his wife had died on February 6, 1782.

• Bell, Whitfield J., and Charles Greifenstein, Jr. Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society. 3 vols. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1997, 3:114–117.
• Ferling, John The Loyalist Mind: Joseph Galloway and the American Revolution. Pennsylvania State Univ Press, 1977; ISBN 0-271-00514-9.
• Kerber, Linda K., Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), p. 75
• Middlekauff, Robert. Benjamin Franklin and His Enemies. University of California Press, 1998; ISBN 0-520-21378-5.

• Baldwin, Ernest H. (1902). "Joseph Galloway, the Loyalist Politician". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. University of Pennsylvania Press. 26 (3): 161–191. JSTOR 20086024.
• —— (1902). "Joseph Galloway, the Loyalist Politician (continued)". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. University of Pennsylvania Press. 26 (3): 289–321. JSTOR 20086036.
• —— (1902). "Joseph Galloway, the Loyalist Politician (concluded)". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. University of Pennsylvania Press. 26 (3): 417–442. JSTOR 20086051.

• Baxter, Beverley (January 1, 1978). "Grace Growden Galloway: Survival of a Loyalist, 1778–79". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 3 (1): 62–67. doi:10.2307/3345995. JSTOR 3345995.
• Boyd, J. P. Anglo-American union: Joseph Galloway's plans to preserve the British empire, 1774–1788 (1941).
• Ferling, John. "Compromise or Conflict: The Rejection of the Galloway Alternative to Rebellion." Pennsylvania History 43.1 (1976): 5-21. online
• Ferling, John E. "Joseph Galloway's Military Advice: A Loyalist's View of the Revolution." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 98.2 (1974): 171-188. online
• Newcomb, Benjamin H. Franklin and Galloway: A Political Partnership. Yale U. Press, 1972.
• Norton, Mary Beth. "The Important Crisis upon Which Our Fate Depends." Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800. Cornell University Press, 1996; ISBN 0-8014-8347-6. 44–45.
• Tait, James. "Galloway, Joseph (c. 1731–1803)" Dictionary of National Biography (2004)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Joseph Galloway.

• Galloway’s Plan for Union at the University of Chicago website
• United States Congress. "Joseph Galloway (id: G000026)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.