James Oglethorpe

[close] Lieutenant-General James Edward Oglethorpe (1696 - 1785) was a British Army officer, Tory politician and colonial administrator best known for founding the Province of Georgia in British North America. As a social reformer, he hoped to resettle Britain's "worthy poor" in the New World, initially focusing on those in debtors' prisons.

Born to a prominent British family, Oglethorpe left college in England and a British Army commission to travel to France, where he attended a military academy before fighting under Prince Eugene of Savoy in the Austro-Turkish War. He returned to England in 1718 and was elected to the British House of Commons in 1722. His early years were relatively undistinguished until 1729, when he was made chair of the Gaols Committee that investigated British debtors' prisons. After the report was published, to widespread attention, Oglethorpe and others began publicising the idea of a new British colony to serve as a buffer between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida. After being granted a charter, he sailed to Georgia in 1732.

Oglethorpe was a major figure in Georgia's early history, holding much civil and military power and instituting a ban on slavery and alcohol. During the War of Jenkins' Ear, he led British troops in Georgia against Spanish forces based in Florida. In 1740, he led a lengthy siege of St. Augustine, which was unsuccessful. He then defeated a Spanish invasion of Georgia in 1742. Oglethorpe left Georgia after another unsuccessful invasion of St. Augustine and never returned. He led government troops in the Jacobite rising of 1745 and was blamed for his role in the Clifton Moor Skirmish. Despite being cleared in a court martial, Oglethorpe never held a military command again. He lost reelection to the House of Commons in 1754 and left England, possible serving undercover in the Prussian Army during the Seven Years' War. In his later years, Oglethorpe was prominent in literary circles, becoming close to James Boswell and Samuel Johnson.