John Penn was born on July 14, 1729 in London, England, United Kingdom. He was the grandson of William Penn and the eldest son of Richard (1706 - 1771) and Hannah (Lardner) Penn. From his father he inherited in 1771 the life use of a quarter of the proprietary rights in Pennsylvania. As prospective heir and later as governor he was largely subject to his uncle, Thomas Penn, long the principal proprietor and still longer the chief spokesman of the proprietors of the province.
John Penn was sent with a tutor to Geneva to study at the University (1747 - 1751) and from 1752 to 1755 was in Pennsylvania, where he was made a member of the provincial council.
John Penn attended as commissioner the Congress on Indian affairs at Albany in 1754. Little is known of his life in England in the years that followed, but in 1763 he returned to America commissioned by his father and uncle as lieutenant governor. Upon the death of his father in 1771 he returned to England for about two years, during which time his brother Richard held office, but in 1773 he returned in his former capacity and so continued until the revolutionary movement displaced proprietary control and his authority was superseded by the Supreme Executive Council. The end of proprietary government in Pennsylvania may be dated September 26, 1776, with the last adjournment of the provincial assembly. The governor's acts and meetings of the council closed nearly a year earlier.
John Penn's official tasks were extremely difficult. There were new boundary disputes with Connecticut and Virginia, while the long-standing controversy with the Lords Baltimore of Maryland was not settled until the running of the Mason and Dixon line in 1767. Indian affairs, though distinctly better after the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, were always troublesome. Penn had to deal with both disgruntled Indians and rabidly vengeful frontiersmen, like the famous "Paxton Boys. " Hostility between people and proprietors represented by assembly and council respectively developed as a result of demands of quit rents by the proprietors and claims by the assembly of their right to tax proprietary land. The conflict came to a climax in 1764 when the assembly petitioned the king for the transfer of the colony from the Penns to the Crown.
Besides the Anti-Proprietary party, which had the leadership of Benjamin Franklin and the support of the Quakers, there was a strong group in favor of the Penns' control, including Justice William Allen, whose daughter became John Penn's second wife, and other influential citizens. The Stamp Act soon diverted animosity against the proprietary into hostility against the royal government, but John Penn's position remained difficult. Naturally the proprietors were, like many of the upper class in Pennsylvania, Loyalists in sympathy at the time of the Revolution.
In fact, for a few months in 1777, John Penn was held a prisoner on parole, though he was never found guilty of any overt act against the American cause. Open hostility to the British Crown would have jeopardized their powers of government, yet the Penns were not wholly averse to the more orderly and moderate ambitions of independence. John Penn seems to have yielded gracefully to the course of events. He received his share in the settlement made upon the former proprietors in the divestment act of 1779, which granted to the descendants of Thomas and Richard Penn the retention of all their private estates and proprietary manors and a compensation of £130, 000.
Except for some years spent abroad, John Penn continued to reside in Philadelphia or at his country estate, "Lansdowne, " on the Schuylkill, until his death on February 9, 1795. John Penn was buried in Christ Church, Philadelphia.
John Penn was a member of the Church of England.
John Penn incurred the displeasure of his elders on account of a youthful marriage to a daughter of one James Cox of London, whom he was compelled to repudiate. They had no children. On May 31, 1766, he had married Ann, eldest daughter of Chief Justice William Allen of Philadelphia, and grand-daughter of Andrew Hamilton. She died on July 4, 1830. Apparently he left no children. His marriage brought him in touch with the local society and he enjoyed the personal respect of the Philadelphians.
