William Vaughan: Liberal Education and Voluntary Societies in the Age of Revolution

This study examines the life of William Vaughan, a merchant in London during the revolutionary era, and the product of a new form of liberal education developed in England's Dissenting Academies. By taking full advantage of the innovative principles of liberal education developed by men like Joseph Priestley, Vaughan, as a professional, was able to wield social and political influence on behalf of a new merchant class previously excluded from the halls of power. Vaughan's success as governor of the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation and promoter of the English shipping industry, as well as his service as a member of numerous civic and philanthropic organizations, demonstrated a commitment to gradual improvements in the material and moral circumstances of the British Empire that had relatively little to do with the partisan political categories typically associated with the revolutionary era.