Background
Galloway was born near West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland in 1731. Joseph Galloway’s father, Peter Galloway, was a wealthy Maryland merchant and farmer.
Galloway was born near West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland in 1731. Joseph Galloway’s father, Peter Galloway, was a wealthy Maryland merchant and farmer.
Galloway moved with his father to Pennsylvania in 1749, where he received a liberal schooling. He studied law, for a time alongside William Franklin the son of Benjamin Franklin and later a fellow leading Loyalist, and was admitted to the bar and began to practice in Philadelphia.
Entering law practice in Philadelphia in 1747, Galloway won a reputation by pleading cases before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania before he was 20. Elected to the provincial assembly in 1756, he occupied the powerful post of speaker from 1766 to 1775. His A plan of a proposed Union between Great Britain and the Colonies in 1774 provided for a president general to be appointed by the king and a colonial legislature to have rights and duties similar to the House of Commons. After a day’s debate his plan was rejected by the Continental Congress by only one vote and was later expunged from the record.
In the belief that the Revolution was unreasonable and unjust, Galloway left Philadelphia and joined General Sir William Howe’s British army. He returned to the city as a civil administrator during the British occupation and drew up several plans of union after the Declaration of Independence with the hope that they might be used when the rebels had been defeated. With the reentry of the Continentals into Philadelphia in 1778 he fled to England, where he remained until his death.
Galloway became a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War, after serving as delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Pennsylvania.
With the approach of the crisis in the relations between Great Britain and the American colonies he adopted a conservative course, and, while recognizing the justice of many of the colonial complaints, discouraged radical action and advocated a compromise.
Galloway was a member of the Continental Congress in 1774, where he proposed a compromise plan for Union with Great Britain which would provide the colonies with their own parliament subject to the Crown.
Galloway was married to Grace Growdon.