Benjamin Furly (13 April 1636 – March 1714) was an English Quaker merchant and friend of

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...

Life

Furly was born at

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

13 April 1636, began life as a merchant there, and joined the early

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...

. In 1659–60 he assisted

John Stubbs John Stubbs (or Stubbe) (c. 1544 – after 25 September 1589) was an English pamphleteer, political commentator and sketch artist during the Elizabethan era. He was born in the County of Norfolk, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. ...

in the compilation of the 'Battle-Door.'

George Fox George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691) was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The son of a Leicestershire weaver, he lived in times of social upheaval and ...

records that this work was finished in 1661, and that Furly took great pains with it. Some time previous to 1677 he went to live at

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

, where he set up as a merchant in the Scheepmaker's Haven. In 1677 George Fox stayed and held religious meetings at Furly's house in Rotterdam, and Furly then accompanied Fox, Keith, and others through Holland and Germany, acting as an interpreter. Later on in the same year he made a ministerial journey with

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

. His house became the rendezvous of Jean Leclerc,

Philip van Limborch Philipp van Limborch (19 June 1633 – 30 April 1712) was a Dutch Remonstrants, Remonstrant theology, theologian. Biography Limborch was born on 19 June 1633 in Amsterdam, where his father was a lawyer. He received his education at Utrecht (city) ...

, and other scholars, and there he entertained

Algernon Sydney Algernon Sidney or Sydney (15 January 1623 – 7 December 1683) was an English politician, republican political theorist and colonel. A member of the middle part of the Long Parliament and commissioner of the trial of King Charles I of England ...

, Locke (1686–88), and Locke's pupil,

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (26 February 1671 – 16 February 1713) was an English politician, philosopher, and writer. Early life He was born at Exeter House in London, the son of the future Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd Earl ...

(1688–89). Sydney constantly wrote to him from 1677 to 1679. Edward Clarke of Chipley seems to have introduced Locke to him, and their correspondence lasted as long as Locke lived. Locke delighted in playing with Furly's children. Subsequently Furly renounced quakerism, again embraced it, but is supposed finally to have left it. He died at Rotterdam in March 1714.

Works

Furly's works include: * 'A Battle-Door for Teachers and Professors to learn Singular and Plural,' &c. (in thirty-five languages), with Stubbs and Fox, 1660. * Preface to Ames's 'Die Sache Christi und seines Volks,' 1662. * 'The World's Honour detected, and, for the Unprofitableness thereof, rejected,' &c., 1663. He also wrote a number of prefaces to the works of other men, assisted George Keith in writing 'The Universal Free Grace of the Gospel asserted,' and translated several works into English from the Dutch. Furly's library was sold by auction, and a catalogue, 'Bibliotheca Furleiana,' was published (1714).

Family

He was twice married. On the death of his first wife in 1691, Locke sent a letter of condolence. By her he had four sons, Benjamin, Benjohan (b. 1681), John, and Arent. The two eldest were merchants. The youngest was secretary to the

Earl of Peterborough Earl of Peterborough was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1628 for John Mordaunt, 5th Baron Mordaunt (see Baron Mordaunt for earlier history of the family). He was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry, the second Earl. He was ...

in Spain, and died there in 1705. Benjohan's daughter, Dorothy, married Thomas Forster, whose sons were Benjamin Forster and Edward Forster. Edward's grandson,

Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster (9 November 1789 – 2 February 1860) was an English astronomer, physician, naturalist and philosopher. An early animal rights activist, he promoted vegetarianism and founded the Animals' Friend Society with Lewis ...

, inherited much of Furly's correspondence, and printed part of his collection as 'Original Letters of Locke, Shaftesbury, and Sydney' in 1830, reissuing it in his privately printed 'Epistolarium' in 1830, 2nd edit. 1847. Much of Shaftesbury's correspondence with Furly went to the

Public Record Office The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was m ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Furly, Benjamin 1636 births 1714 deaths 17th-century merchants Converts to Quakerism English merchants English Quakers People from Colchester