Presentation to Torch Club

1. I dedicate tonight’s talk to the memory of
Richard Vance Wellman,
1922-2005

2. Richard Wellman
• Dick introduced me to you this Spring and it
is with deep appreciation and pleasure to
welcome Natalie Wellman tonight.
• As John Langbein of the Yale School of Law
said:
– “Dick Wellman was a national treasure. He
was our most knowledgeable and
influential authority on probate
procedure.”
• Dick spoke here on “An Introduction to U.S.
Family Law.”
• I ask for a moment of silence in his memory.

3. Sir Joseph Jekyll and
His Impact on Colonial Georgia
By Thomas Hart Wilkins
At the Torch Club of Athens, Georgia on August 25, 2005

4. Jekyll Island, Georgia was named
for Sir Joseph Jekyll
• Because of Jekyll’s impact on the Colony
of Georgia, General Oglethorpe named
the island across from Saint Simon Island
in honor of Sir Joseph Jekyll.
• Historian Charles Jones said that
Oglethorpe and Jekyll “were friends.”

5. Sir Joseph Jekyll, 1663-1738
Portrait by Michael Dahl a copy this portrait
hangs in the Rockefeller Cottage on Jekyll
Island

6. Why have no Articles ever been written on
Jekyll’s relationship with the Colony of
Georgia?
• A fire in Parliament in early 19th century destroyed
many records from this period.
• Jekyll did not maintain a diary as Lord Egmont did.
• Very few letters from and to Jekyll exist today as
contrasted with numerous surviving letters to and
from General Oglethorpe.
• Parliament tried to suppress limit newspaper
reporting of Parliamentary debates. For example,
Samuel Adams wrote about Parliamentary speeches
in the 1740’s as “Debates in the Senate of Lilliput,”
the fictitious country created by Joseph Addison.
• What speeches have been recorded are sketchy and
are recreated by third parties.
• Privy Council records are also sketchy.
• Nothing compares to Lord Egmont’s Diary in size
and scope.

7. The Order of Tonight’s Discussion
• 1. Who was Jekyll?
• 2. The Burning issues of the 1730’s.
• 3. Jekyll’s Impact on these burning issues
and on Georgia.

8. Who Was Sir Joseph Jekyll?
• One of Britain’s Most Senior Judges
• A Member of the House of Parliament
• A Member of the Privy Council.
• Knighted by King William III
• Appointed to the Privy Council and Master of the
Rolls by King George I.
• It would as if Condoleezza Rice were today a
member of the Supreme Court, House of
Representatives and Cabinet at the same time.

9. “The Rolls” a photography by our
member, Dr. John Whitehead

10. Joseph Jekyll
• Born in 1662 as the fourth son of John Jekyll, a
radical dissenting politician, haberdasher,
Presbyterian and lifelong friend of Rev. Thomas
Watson whose writings are still published today.
• Went to a Dissenters’ Academy.
• Married the sister of Baron Somers, Lord Chancellor
of England, under King William III and chairman of a
Parliamentary Committee which led to Britain’s Bill
of Rights.
• A Member of Parliament for 40 years

11. What were the burning issues of this Era?
Excessive Alcoholic Consumption, same as
today but portrayed differently as
“Gin Alley” by William Hogarth

12. Issues Continued:
Church Government Issues

13. Issues Continued:
The emigration of the Salzburgers to
Georgia

14. Issues Continued: Georgia was a no man’s land between South Carolina
and Spanish Florida.

15. Issues Continued: Fort Augustine
built by the Spanish

16. Issues Continued: The Captain Robert Jenkins Saga. Here Walpole pushes away
Captain Jenkins and his severed ear, A French representative bribes the Prime
Minister’s mistress and a courtier throws out a protesting British merchant. A
naval vessel in the far right edge suggests an alternative to Walpole’s foreign
policy of appeasement.

17. Marker for the Battle of Bloody
Marsh

18. Issues Continued: How Jekyll related to Party
Government. Robert Walpole, Considered Britain’s
First Prime Minister, in Roman Attire

19. Issues Continued:
Propagation of Protestanism and Peace with
the Natives

20. Now to turn to the title of tonight’s
talk: What was Jekyll’s Impact on
Colonial Georgia?
• Based on Hard Facts:
– Financial Support.
– Military Support for the colony when it was
vulnerable to Spanish invasion.
– Religious toleration.
• Not based on Hard Facts but based on
convincing circumstantial evidence:
– Banning the sale and import of rum in Georgia.
– Banning of slavery in Georgia.

21. Jekyll’s Impact via Financial
Support
• There are many documents and facts supporting
Jekyll’s significant role in supporting Georgia
philanthropically and legislatively.
• He and his wife were the largest
contributors….giving £600…and tied for first place
with King Georgia II.
• To show you what 600 was worth, the only known
study concerning the distribution of income was in
1688, when almost half of Britain’s population had a
per capital income of £2.5 per annum. Assuming a
doubling by the 1730’s to £5.00, then the Jekyll’s gift
would be the equivalent of 120 persons annual
income.
• We know he donated because he was sympathetic to
the goals of the colony.

22. Financial Support Continued
• The Georgia Colony was dependent on Parliamentary funding.
• Oglethorpe tried in 1732 to obtain Parliamentary funding but
could not get the votes.
• Because of Jekyll’s standing in Parliament, he was chosen by
the Trustees to make the motion on May 10, 1733 for the first
Parliamentary grant of £10,000 to support the colony .
• Lord Egmont said Jekyll spoke “very handsomely” for his
motion and overcame the objections of Mr. Francis Whitworth
who did not want to use public money for the colony and
overcame the objections of Mr. Thomas Winnington who
thought that raising of wine and silk in Georgia would prove to
be cost ineffective. Parliament approve this maiden grant
which came just in time when Oglethorpe needed it after
having landed in Savannah a few months earlier.
• Part of Jekyll’s success in obtaining Parliamentary votes was
that he said part of the funds would be used to bring the
Salzburgers from Germany to Georgia.

23. Impact Continue: Military Support
• At a time when Prime Minister Walpole
gave indications that he was willing to
abandon the Georgia colonists to the
Spanish claims to Georgia, Jekyll wrote a
forcible letter to the Lord Chancellor. This
handwritten letter is unpublished but is in
The British Library and has been
transcribed at my directions by a
professional archivist.

24. Impact Continued: Religious
Toleration
• According to the Dictionary of National
Biography (2005), Jekyll authored the Quaker
Tithe Bill which terminated the persecution of
Quakers in Britain and in Georgia. One
should be reminded that a diversity of faiths
was not the way of life in early 18th century
Britain.
• According to Lord Egmont, Jekyll spoke in
Parliament as:
– “That it seems a particular design of Providence
to erect a colony at this time for an asylum to the
persecuted Protestants of Saltsburg..”

25. Impact Continued: Rum
• Jekyll was the unquestioned leader in
London for controlling liquor distribution and
consumption, as abused in the earlier slide
entitled “Gin Alley.” He was the author of the
Gin Act which taxed heavily the retailing of
liquor and caused riots in London.
• The legal basis for outlawing rum importation
and retailing in Georgia was an order from
“King in (Privy) Council” of April 3, 1735.

26. Impact Continued: Slavery
• The Trustees wanted Georgia to be different from
South Carolina.
• They did not want to have a “trickle down economy”
where only a few men possessed huge landed
estates.
• Instead the Trustees limited land holdings to 50
acres per man whose transportation and one year’s
support was provided by the Trustees. In theory,
each colonist was to be both a farmer-provider as
well as a soldier to defend against Spanish
encroachment. A maximum of 500 acres was allowed
when colonists went to Georgia at their own expense
and brought indentured servants with them.

27. Slavery continued
• Slavery was outlawed because the Trustees feared that the
Spanish would use slaves as a means of insurrection against
the Georgia colonist, by promising them freedom if they
escaped to Florida.
• Georgia was alone in outlawing slavery.
• The legal basis for banning slavery was an order on April 3,
1735 from “King in (Privy) Council.”
• Whereas no known transcript of this meeting identifies Jekyll
as a supporter of this ban, Jekyll was one of the Privy Council’s
most active attendees and Jekyll also feared Georgia’s
insecurity against the Spanish as shown in his letter to
Britain’s Chancellor (Hardwicke). The threat from Spain to
Georgia was the most compelling reason to outlaw slavery.
• After Jekyll’s death in 1738 and after Oglethorpe’s defeat of the
Spanish in 1742 at the Battle of Bloody Marsh, the military
arguments for banning slavery were no longer compelling and
the ban was lifted in January 1, 1751 right before the Trustees’
term of office expired. Afterwards, Georgia became a slaved-
based economy.

28. Jekyll’s Influence on the American
Revolution
• It is beyond the scope of this talk but Jekyll’s
Parliamentary Speeches were used against
the argument of “virtual representation”…
namely that the members of Parliament in
London, though not elected by Georgians,
were able to represent Georgia’s interests.
• Once this argument was demolished,
America was able to break its bond to
London.

29. Picture Credits
• Slide 3: Picture of Horton House on Jekyll Island.
Georgia Historical Quarterly, Summer, 2002.
• Slide 5: Jekyll’s Portrait hangs in the Judges’ Room
of the Employment Appeals Tribunal in London.
• Slide 9: House of Lord’s Archives courtesy of Dr.
John Whitehead.
• Slide 11: Hogarth’s “Gin Lane” courtesy of
Northwestern University Library.
• Slide 12: Saltzburger Eviction courtesy of New York
Public Library.
• Slide 14: Source: John Tate Lanning: The Diplomatic
History of Georgia, 1936