Richard Penn (governor)

Richard Penn Jr. (1735 – 27 May 1811, Richmond, Surrey, England) served as the lieutenant governor of the Province of Pennsylvania from 1771 to 1773, and was later a member of the British Parliament.

Penn entertained members of the Continental Congress at his Philadelphia city house, a Virginia delegate, Colonel George Washington, being among his guests.

Richard Penn was elected a trustee of the College and Academy of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) in 1772, serving as president of the board in 1773 and 1774.

With the coming of the Revolution, he retired and returned to England in the summer of 1775, when the Continental Congress entrusted him with the Olive Branch Petition to the King.

George III refused to accept the petition, but Penn gave evidence to the House of Lords on the colonies' attitudes toward independence.

Penn entered Parliament in 1784 as member for Appleby, elected on the Lonsdale interest, and subsequently also represented two other Lonsdale-dominated boroughs, Haslemere and Lancaster.