Robert Goldsborough was an American lawyer and statesman from Maryland. He also served as a delegate to the Continental Congress.
Background
Robert Goldsborough was born on December 3, 1733, at “Horn’s Point, ” near Cambridge, Maryland. His parents were Charles Goldsborough, a prominent lawyer and planter and later secretary of the province of Maryland, and Elizabeth (Ennalls) Goldsborough, of a distinguished family of Dorchester County.
The Goldsborough family was descended from Nicholas Goldsborough, who settled in Maryland about 1670 and is said to have been a descendant of a Sir Richard who owned the manor of Goldes- burgh in Yorkshire in the time of Henry III.
Education
Young Robert received his legal training at the Middle Temple, Westminster, which he entered December 2, 1752.
Career
Goldsborough was called to the English bar on February 8, 1757. Returning to Maryland, he practiced law with such success that he was, by 1767, “at the top of the profession” and “possessed of a considerable fortune. ”
Gov. Sharpe had made him sheriff of Dorchester County; he had been elected to the House of Delegates in 1764 and appointed attorney-general in 1766. The governor desired also to make him a member of the council, but when finally the approval of Lord Baltimore was received, Goldsborough refused the office and resigned the position of attorney-general (1768).
The Maryland convention that met on June 22-25, 1774, elected him one of the delegates to the Continental Congress. He was present at the early sessions of the Congress and was chosen on the committee to state the rights of the colonies, but seems to have taken little part in proceedings.
He was also present at the session of May 1775. In that year, he was a delegate from Dorchester to the Maryland convention, signed the “Association of the Freemen of Maryland”, and was elected to committees to consider defense and to write to Virginia.
He was also chosen a member of the council of safety and of the delegation to Congress but was not among the delegates chosen on July 4, 1776.
Elected to the convention which met on August 14, 1776, to frame a constitution for Maryland, he was made a member of the committee to adopt a plan of government, he was elected one of the first senators under this constitution, but was inactive until 1781, when he supported measures to protect the Eastern Shore from British and Tory raids.
In 1788, he was chosen a delegate from Dorchester to the convention which ratified the Federal Constitution but apparently did not attend.
He died a few months later on the estate where he was born.
Achievements
Connections
On March 27, 1755, Goldsborough married Sarah Yerbury, daughter of Richard Yerbury of Bassinghall Street, London.