Zephaniah Kingsley Sr. (April 11, 1734 – circa 1792) was an affluent British merchant, a

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...

during the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

and one of the seven founders of the

University of New Brunswick The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is a public university with two primary campuses in Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick. It is the oldest English-language university in Canada, and among the oldest public universities in North Americ ...

Canada's Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by total ...

oldest English language university. He was the father of slave trader and plantation owner Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. and the grandfather of

Anna McNeill Whistler Anna Matilda (née McNeill) Whistler (September 27, 1804 – January 31, 1881) was the mother of American-born, British-based painter James McNeill Whistler, who made her the subject of his famous painting ''Arrangement in Grey and Black N ...

— better known as "

Whistler's Mother ''Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1'', best known under its colloquial name ''Whistler's Mother'' or ''Portrait of Artist's Mother'', is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler in 1871. T ...

" in the painting Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 by her son (and Kingsley's great-grandson)

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

Early years

Son of Elizabeth Wright and Benjamin Kingsley, Zephaniah was born in Leake (Lincolnshire, England) into a third-generation family of

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 ...

. As a young man, he moved to London to become a cloth merchant. There he met Isabella Johnston (possibly of Dumfries, Scotland), whom he married in 1763 at the Church of St Mary LeBow, in London. After a brief stay in London, the couple moved to

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, where Kingsley established a retail business. In 1768, Kingsley filed for bankruptcy, and the family moved back to London the following year.

Colonial America and the American Revolution

Kingsley emigrated with his wife and children to Charlestown (

Province of South Carolina Province of South Carolina, originally known as Clarendon Province, was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monar ...

) in December 1770. Within three years, he had become a successful merchant of imported goods, owning several high-end properties and entering into multiple business partnerships. Kingsley remained loyal to Great Britain during the American Revolution. Before the fighting started, Kingsley endured many hardships as a result of his loyalty to the Crown. During the 1774 disturbances opposing the

Tea Act The Tea Act 1773 (13 Geo 3 c 44) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help th ...

, Kingsley (along with other merchants) was forced by a violent mob to dump his tea consignment into the water. Mobs intimidated loyalists, going house to house, tarring and feathering some, and pressuring them to leave. Despite such harassment, Kingsley refused to sign the loyalty oath required by the patriots.Schafer, Daniel (2013). Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. and the Atlantic World: Slave Trader, Plantation Owner, Emancipator. University Press of Florida. Between 1775 and 1779, when the Continentals were in control of Charleston, Kingsley was imprisoned three times for refusing to bear arms against the Crown. By 1780, the British had regained control of Charleston. Kingsley was appointed to a commission that helped promote loyalty to the British government. By 1782 the revolutionaries had regained Charleston and Kingsley's sizeable property (consisting of several townhouses and thousands of acres in the surrounding countryside) was confiscated. He was also banished from

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

by the

Assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

. On December 14, 1782 Kingsley temporarily left for England in one of the last of the 300 British evacuation ships that left Charleston.

Canada

Back in Bristol, Kingsley obtained a new line of credit and in 1784 emigrated to Saint John in the newly created

Colony of New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and F ...

. There he sought, and obtained, land grants that the Crown gave to Loyalist refugees. He became a prominent businessman in the colony, owning many stores and importing his merchandise from

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

in his own ships. He also acquired townhouses in Saint John and

Fredericton Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River, which flows west to east as it bisects the city. The river is the do ...

. By 1785, Kingsey was reunited with his family in New Brunswick. Kingsley was very active in the social life of early New Brunswick. One of his ships (the ''True Briton'') brought £500 in relief money from London that the London Quakers sent to assist needy Loyalist colonists. On December 18, 1785, Kingsley and six other notable citizens petitioned Governor Thomas Carleton to establish "an academy or school of liberal arts and sciences at Fredericton". This eventually became Canada's oldest English language university, the

."The Petition of 1785", pamphlet, prepared by Archives and Special Collections, Harriet Irving Library, 03-86. University of New Brunswick

Death

In 1791, the Kingsleys moved to

Wilmington, North Carolina Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States. With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the ...

. Zephaniah Kingsley Sr. probably died a year later. His wife Isabella died in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on December 14, 1814, at age 77 and was buried at the

' Houston Street Cemetery in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kingsley, Zephaniah Sr. 1734 births 1792 deaths Colony of New Brunswick people People from Lincolnshire People from Wilmington, North Carolina Businesspeople from Charleston, South Carolina United Empire Loyalists