Robert Proud (128)

Election date: 1768 (Elected to the revived American Philosophical Society.)

Robert Proud (10 May 1728–5 July 1813) was an educator and merchant, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768. Born in England to Quaker parents, he attended a Quaker boarding school in Skipton where he studied and mastered classical languages. Proud spent much of the 1750s as a tutor before immigrating to Philadelphia in 1759. There, he continued to tutor, before succeeding APS member Charles Thomson as master of the Friends School in 1761. Proud later resigned his position in 1770 and began an ill-fated import business with his brother, which left him deeply in debt. Though a staunch Tory during the American Revolution, Proud did not share his opinions widely and so attracted little attention. He spent the war unmolested, free to complete a two-volume history of Pennsylvania. In 1780 he resumed his position as master of the Friends School but resigned again ten years later over an ongoing dispute with the school’s overseers about whether its curriculum should be focused on classical or practical learning. In 1797 and 1798 Proud published his Pennsylvania history even though it cost him more than he recovered in sales. Though impoverished, an allowance from former students allowed him to spend his final years reading and writing. He died after a short illness in 1813. (PI)



Member(s): Robert Proud
128.001
The history of Pennsylvania, in North America, from the original institution and settlement of that province, under the first proprietor and governor William Penn, in 1681, till after the year 1742; with an introduction, respecting, the life of the late W. Penn, prior to the grant of the province, and the religious society of the people called Quakers; --with the first rise of the neighbouring colonies, more particularly of West-New-Jersey, and the settlement of the Dutch and Swedes on Delaware : to which is added, a brief description of the said province, and of the general state, in which it flourished, principally between the years 1760 and 1770 : the whole including a variety of things, useful and interesting to be known, respecting that country in early time, &c : with an appendix : written principally between the years 1776 and 1780.
Creator(s):
Proud, Robert, 1728-1813 (Author)
Publication:
Philadelphia: Printed and sold by Zachariah Poulson, Junior, number eighty, Chesnut-Street, Philadelphia : Printed and sold by Zachariah Poulson, Junior, number eighty, Chesnut-Street, 1797[-1798]
Subjects:
Penn, William, 1644-1718. | Society of Friends. | Society of Friends -- Early works to 1800. | New Sweden -- History. | New Jersey -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. | Pennsylvania -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.
Record Source:
ESTC
References:
Sabin 66223 | Evans 32729 | Evans 34421 | Howes P 639
APS Subjects:
History | Religion
Editions:
1x 1797-1798
Editions Note:

One edition: the first volume was printed in 1797, the second in 1798.

Holding Note: APS has one copy, presented by the author on 18 June 1802. View Holding