Thomas Hutchinson Biography

Dromo's Den

HUTCHINSON, Thomas (1711-80). An American Loyalist, the last royal Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was born Sept. 9, 1711, in Boston, where his father, the great-grandson of Anne Hutchinson (q.v.), was a wealthy merchant and shipowner. He graduated at Harvard in 1727, entered his father's countingroom, early showed remarkable aptitude for business, and by the time he was 24 had accumulated considerable property in trading ventures on his own account. The social prominence of his family, as well as his own position in the business world, made him, while still a young man, a person of considerable importance in the community. In 1737 he was elected a member of the Boston board of selectmen. Later in the. same year he was chosen a representative to the General Court of the Colony and at once took a strong stand in opposition to the views of the majority with regard to a proper currency. His proposal to borrow silver in England to redeem the outstanding bills of credit and his opposition to the revival of the land bank made him unpopular with the people and impelled his constituents in town meeting to draw up "instructions," disregard of which led to his retirement in 1740. In that year he went to England as a. commissioner to represent Massachusetts in a boundary dispute with New Hampshire. In 1742 he was reëlected to the General Court and was thereafter chosen annually until 1749, serving as Speaker from 1746 to 1749. He continued his advocacy of a sound currency, and when the British Parliament reimbursed Massachusetts in 1749 for the expenses incurred in the Louisburg expedition, he proposed the abolition of the bills of credit, and the utilization of the parliamentary repayment as the basis for a new Colonial currency. The proposal was finally adopted by the Assembly, and its good effect on the trade of the Colony at once established Hutchinson's reputation as a financier. On leaving the General Court he was appointed at once to the Governor's Council, in 1750 he was chairman of a commission to arrange a treaty with the Indians in the District of Maine, and he served on boundary commissions to settle disputes with Connecticut and Rhode Island. In 1752 he was appointed judge of probate and a justice of the Common Pleas. In 1754, as a delegate from Massachusetts to the Albany Convention (q.v.), he took a leading part in the discussions, and favored Franklin's plan for Colonial union, although doubting its practicability. In 1758 he was appointed Lieutenant Governor, and in 1760 Chief Justice, of the Province. In the following year, by issuing writs of assistance (q.v.), he brought upon himself a storm of protest and criticism. His distrust of popular government as exemplified in the New England town meeting increased. Although he opposed the principle of the Stamp Act (q.v.), considered it impolitic, and later advised its repeal, he accepted its legality, and, as a result of his stand, his city house was sacked by a mob in August, 1765, and his valulable collection of books and manuscripts destroyed. In 1769, upon the resignation of Governor Bernard, he became acting Governor, serving in that capacity at the time of the Boston Massacre (q.v.), March 5, 1770, when popular clamor compelled him to order the removal of the troops from the city. In March, 1771, he received his commission as Governor. His administration, controlled completely by the British ministry, increased the friction with the patriots. The publication, in 1773, of some letters on Colonial affairs written by Hutchinson, and obtained by Franklin in England, still further aroused public indignation, and led the ministry to see the necessity for stronger measures. The temporary suspension of the civil government followed, and General Gage was appointed military governor in April, 1774. Driven from the country by threats in the following May and broken in health and spirit, Hutchinson spent the remainder of his life an exile in England. There, still nominally. Governor, he was consulted by Lord North in regard to American affairs; but his advice that a moderate policy be adopted, and his opposition to the Boston Port Bill, and the suspension of the Massachusetts constitution, were not heeded. His American estates were confiscated, and he was compelled to refuse a baronetcy on account of lack of means. He died at Brampton, now a part of London, June 3, 1780. He wrote a History of Massachusetts Bay (vol. i, 1764; vol. ii, 1767; vol. iii, 1828), a work of great historical value, calm, and judicious in the main, but entirely unphilosophical and lacking in style. His Diary and Letters was published in 1884-86. Consult: J. K. Hosmer, Life of Thomas Hutchinson (Boston, 1896), and the chapter "Thomas Hutchinson, the Last Royal Governor of Massachusetts," in John Fiske, Essays, Historical and Literary, vol. i (New York, 1902).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 634-635.