Edward Penington was born on December 4, 1726 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Isaac and Ann (Biles) Penington and grandson of Edward Penington. His father, justice of the county court, sheriff of the county, and one of the founders of the Philadelphia Public Library Company, was a well-educated man and a large property holder in the county.
Edward Penington was educated in Friends' schools and then went to Philadelphia, where he became a successful merchant.
In 1755 and 1757 Edward Penington was signing provincial paper money. Four years later, 1761, he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly and in the same year he became one of the judges of the court of common pleas. He was appointed one of the trustees of the State House and grounds, and in 1762 he was made a member of Sir William Johnson's committee to treat with the Indians. When the Committee of Correspondence was named in Philadelphia in June 1774 Penington was chosen a member and was nominated for the presidency. The following month, July 15, he was elected a deputy for the city and the county of Philadelphia to the first Continental Congress. Opposed to armed resistance, he found himself out of sympathy with the government after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Edward Penington has even been considered the author of a piece of Tory poetry, the "Poetical Proclamation, " which satirized the committee charged with enforcing the ordinances of the Congress. The poem did appear in his handwriting, but beyond that there is no proof that it was of his composition. Penington was twice arrested, in 1776 for a few hours, and again in September 1777, when he was sent with a group of nineteen others to the Free Masons' Lodge and later exiled to Winchester, Virginia, where he remained until April 1778.
On his return to Philadelphia, Edward Penington took little active interest in politics until 1790 when he became a member of the city council. The following year he was appointed by the legislature as one of the trustees to distribute money among French refugees living in Philadelphia. He was a manager of the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1773 until his resignation in 1779. In January 1768, Penington was chosen a member of the committee of the American Philosophical Society to draft its laws. With the formation of the Society for the Cultivation of Silk, sponsored by the Society, Penington was elected treasurer.
Edward Penington died in Philadelphia on September 30, 1796.
Edward Penington was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
On November 26, 1754 Edward Penington married Sarah, daughter of Benjamin and Sarah (Coates) Shoemaker at Bank Meeting House.
