John Randolph was born in 1727 or 1728, probably at what is now called the Peyton Randolph House on Market Square, and his heritage was thoroughly Virginian. Educated at the College of William & Mary, he traveled to London in 1745 to study law at the Middle Temple at the Inns of Court in London, and returned to Williamsburg to practice law in 1749.
The third child of Sir John and Lady Susannah Randolph, John was convinced British-Americans owed more loyalty to the Crown than to the Massachusetts hotheads or to firebrands like his friend Patrick Henry. Historians have tagged him with the nickname John "The Tory."
John Randolph died at Brampton, England, in 1784. In death, as he could not in conscience do in life, Randolph returned to Williamsburg. He is interred beside his father and brother in the family vault in the chapel at the College of William and Mary.
Gift
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John Randolph The Tory Papers, Special Collections Research Center, William & Mary Libraries.
Coat of Arms bookplate of John Randolph of Middle Temple London.
Letter of John Randolph the Tory, from London, addressed to his Excellency Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, dated October 25, 1779. Friendship and difference of opinion, war news in Great Britain, danger of America using Spanish and French help in war, English Government, newspaper and libel and need to rethink war and all will be forgiven by Great Britain. (Note: letter probably never sent).
Printed in the Papers of Thomas Jefferson.
A note by J.W. Keppel April 28, 1840 in regard to finding this letter.
Booklet, "Letter from the Virginia Loyalist from John Randolph to Thomas Jefferson written in London in 1779," by Leonard L. Mackall, 1921 reprint and signed by Mackall in 1936.