Franklin, Benjamin

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-90), American statesman and scientist.

Benjamin Franklin was the fifteenth child of a poor candlemaker in Boston, Massachusetts.

He started work at the age of twelve as a printer's apprentice in his home town and, five years later, went to Philadelphia. He arrived almost penniless, but, by the time he was twenty-four, he owned his own printing works.

In Philadelphia he helped to start a library, improved the fire brigade and set up a hospital.

He was interested in science and one of his experiments became famous. He flew a kite during a thunderstorm. Lightning struck the kite and flowed down the wet string to a key fastened on the end of it, causing a spark. Afterwards he invented the lightning conductor, which you will see on the side of tall buildings today.

Among his other inventions were bifocal lenses in spectacles. In 1757 he travelled to England and stayed there for eighteen years, putting forward arguments for the colonies in America. Once he answered 174 questions in the House of Commons about taxes in the colonies.

Franklin was a big advocate for paper money when England and America were still using only coins. He has appeared on several American coins and bills and can now be seen on the hundred dollar bill.

He returned to America two weeks after the War of Independence started and he helped to draw up the Declaration of Independence and was one of the people who signed it.

At the end of the war, he helped to draw up the peace treaty and later he worked on the Constitution of the United States.

See Walter Isaacson Benjamin Franklin