Background
Vaughan was born in Jamaica to Samuel Vaughan, a British West India merchant planter, and an Anglo-American mother Sarah Hallowell.
Vaughan was born in Jamaica to Samuel Vaughan, a British West India merchant planter, and an Anglo-American mother Sarah Hallowell.
He was educated at Newcome"s School and Warrington Academy and attended Trinity Hall, Cambridge, without graduating.
He was a commissioner in the negotiations between Britain and the United States and the drafting of the Treaty of Paris. He then read medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Vaughan was a political economist, merchant and medical doctor.
Through Benjamin Horne, brother of John Horne, he met the politician Lord Shelburne.
Shelburne then used Vaughan in a diplomatic role, to try to bring peace between Great Britain and the United States, towards the end of the American War of Independence. He was also a middleman in reconciling Franklin and Shelburne.
He spoke in parliament in defence of slavery in Jamaica, in his maiden speech. By 1794 he was in favour of the abolition of the slave trade.
After 1794, Vaughan left France for Switzerland and later to America.
His interest in republicanism lead to his permanent departure from Britain. He settled in Boston and then on a farm in Hallowell, Maine in 1797. He died in Hallowell in 1835.
Vaughan married Sarah Manning in 1781 and had several children:
William Oliver Vaughan
Petty Vaughan
The family and descendents remained in Maine after Vaughan settled in Hallowell in 1797 and continue to reside in the town today.
Several places are named for Vaughan:
City of Vaughan, Ontario is named in his honour
Indirectly Vaughan Road is linked to him as the northern end of the road headed into then Township of Vaughan. Vaughan Road Academy, name after Vaughan Road
Vaughan Stream in Hallowell, Maine
Vaughan Field in Hallowell
Vaughan Homestead.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 17th Parliament of Great Britain]
He was elected at a by-election in 1792 as a Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for the borough of Calne in Wiltshire, and held the seat until the 1796 general election.
