87 Facts About William Shirley

William Shirley was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of the British American colonies of Massachusetts Bay and the Bahamas.

William Shirley is best known for his role in organizing the successful capture of Louisbourg during King George's War, and for his role in managing military affairs during the French and Indian War.

William Shirley spent most of his years in the colonial administration of British North America working to defeat New France, but his lack of formal military training led to political difficulties and his eventual downfall.

Politically well connected, Shirley began his career in Massachusetts as advocate general in the admiralty court, and quickly became an opponent of Governor Jonathan Belcher.

William Shirley joined with Belcher's other political enemies to bring about Belcher's recall, and was appointed Governor of Massachusetts Bay in Belcher's place.

William Shirley successfully quieted political divisions within the province, and was able to bring about united action against New France when King George's War began in 1744.

The successful capture of Louisbourg, which William Shirley had a major role in organizing, was one of the high points of his administration.

William Shirley was then assigned to a commission established by Great Britain and France to determine the colonial borders in North America.

Military matters again dominated William Shirley's remaining years in Massachusetts, with the French and Indian War beginning in 1754.

William Shirley led a military expedition to reinforce Fort Oswego in 1755, and became Commander-in-Chief, North America upon the death of General Edward Braddock.

Notably, as commander-in-chief, William Shirley knew George Washington, who served under his command.

William Shirley was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and then read law at the Inner Temple in London.

William Shirley's family was connected by marriage to the Duke of Newcastle, who became an important patron and sponsor of Shirley's advancement, and to that of Arthur Onslow, the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Armed with letters of introduction from Newcastle and others, William Shirley arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1731.

William Shirley was initially received with indifference by Massachusetts governor Jonathan Belcher, who refused him patronage positions that became available.

In 1733 William Shirley sought to secure from David Dunbar the commission as the crown surveyor general, but Dunbar eventually decided to retain the office.

William Shirley made common cause with Samuel Waldo, a wealthy merchant and major landowner in the province eastern district where Belcher's lax enforcement of timber-cutting laws was harming his business with the Royal Navy.

In 1736 William Shirley sent his wife to London to lobby on his behalf against Belcher.

William Shirley consequently engaged in recruiting, principally outside Massachusetts, and deluged Newcastle with documentation of his successes while Belcher was preoccupied with a banking crisis.

William Shirley created a series of provincial companies along the frontier.

When William Shirley took office, relations between France and Britain were strained, and there was a possibility that Britain would be drawn into the War of the Austrian Succession, which had started on the European mainland in 1740.

William Shirley was able to finesse his restrictions on the production of paper currency to achieve an updating of the province's defences, and in 1742 requested permission from the Board of Trade for the printing of additional currency should war break out.

British colonial governors along the coast, including William Shirley, sent colonial guard ships and authorized their own privateers in response, neutralizing the French activity.

William Shirley had, prior to its capture, received a request for assistance from the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, Paul Mascarene, for support in the defence of Annapolis Royal.

John Bradstreet, who had been captured at Canso and held prisoner at Louisbourg, returned to New England in a prisoner exchange, and gave a detailed report to William Shirley that emphasised the weaknesses of the French fort.

William Shirley requested support for the expedition from Peter Warren, commodore of the Royal Navy squadron in the West Indies, but Warren declined due to the strenuous objections of his captains.

When it became evident that British troops would not be relieving the provincials until after winter had passed, Governor William Shirley travelled to Louisbourg to raise the morale of the troops.

Honors from the British government were sparse; Pepperrell was made a baronet, he and William Shirley were made colonels in the British Army with the right to raise their own regiments, and Warren was promoted to rear admiral.

William Shirley had engaged in the Louisbourg campaign primarily as a way to ensure British interests in the Atlantic fisheries.

William Shirley stepped up recruiting in Massachusetts and asked neighboring governors to contribute men and resources to the effort.

William Shirley personally profited from the supply activities surrounding the Louisbourg expedition.

The mob then went to Governor William Shirley's house, demanding the release of the men impressed by Knowles.

William Shirley tried to call out the militia, but they did not respond.

William Shirley did succeed in getting the naval officers into his house, and the mob eventually left.

Later in the day William Shirley went to the Town House to meet the people.

William Shirley spoke to the mob and promised to present their demands to Commodore Knowles.

Shirley ordered a number of armed men who were protecting his house to fire at the mob, but William Pepperrell was able to stop Shirley's men from firing and to persuade the mob to leave.

William Shirley was only able to forestall this effort by promising the colonial administration that he would achieve financial stability in the province by retiring its paper currency.

The loss of Louisbourg increase public dissatisfaction with William Shirley, who was seen as complicit in British scheming against the American colonies.

William Shirley appealed these actions to London, and was granted permission to travel to London to deal with the matter.

In London William Shirley met with Newcastle and the colonial secretary, the Duke of Bedford to discuss colonial matters and his situation.

William Shirley communicated political concerns over which he and New York governor George Clinton had commiserated.

William Shirley applied to Newcastle for the job, but was turned down.

The commission was set to meet in Paris, and William Shirley saw it as an opportunity to advance his expansionist views.

Newcastle and Bedford were at the time involved in a political struggle, and Newcastle was unhappy that William Shirley had accepted Bedford's offer.

William Shirley was able to convince Newcastle that his experience and position would be of use in the negotiations.

William Shirley adopted a hard line in the negotiations, arguing in a technical and lawyerly fashion for an expansive reading of British territory; he claimed all territory east of a line from the Kennebec River north to the Saint Lawrence River, while the French claimed all of that area except peninsular Nova Scotia.

William Shirley's approach served to harden negotiating positions and bogged the commission's work down in minutiae.

In 1751 William Shirley incited a minor scandal when he married Julie, the young daughter of his Paris landlord.

William Shirley returned to London convinced that the French needed to be driven from North America.

William Shirley renewed his application for the New York governorship, but was snubbed by Newcastle, who was upset over William Shirley's marriage.

The opposition in Massachusetts to William Shirley had died down while he was in England and Paris.

William Shirley soon had to deal with the increasing conflict on the frontier with French Canada.

When rumors reached Boston in 1754 of French military activity on the province's northern frontier, William Shirley was quick to organize an expedition to the Kennebec River to bolster the area's defenses.

William Shirley instructed the provincial representatives to the Albany Conference to seek a colonial union, but the provincial assembly rejected the conference's proposals.

William Shirley was approached by Nova Scotia Governor Charles Lawrence for assistance in dealing with the French threat on that province's frontiers, suggesting that they collaborate on military actions there.

William Shirley was ordered to activate and recruit for his regiment, which was to serve in Braddock's force.

William Shirley furthermore revived the idea of an expedition against Fort St Frederic, although he limited the first year's action to the establishment of a fort at the southern end of Lake George, and sought to draw the leaders of neighboring colonies to assist in the operation.

William Shirley mollified New York's acting governor James DeLancey, who was generally hostile to Massachusetts interests, by proposing that the expedition be led by New York's Indian commissioner, Colonel William Johnson.

Johnson was at first reluctant, but William Shirley was able to convince him to take the command.

In written exchanges, Braddock announced his intention to use this force against Fort Duquesne in the Ohio Country, while William Shirley unsuccessfully lobbied him to instead target Fort Niagara.

When William Shirley moved to prevent New York agent Oliver DeLancey from recruiting in Connecticut, it caused a stink and threatened to derail planning for the New York expeditions.

William Shirley then created a breach with Johnson by attempting to siphon troops from Johnson's command to increase his own force for the Fort Niagara expedition.

William Shirley took offense at this as an act of insubordination.

The Iroquois objected to the presence of William Shirley's recruiting agent, Colonel John Lydius, with whom they had outstanding issues over past land transactions.

The situation was not made easier by the fact that neither Johnson nor William Shirley had ever commanded expeditions of the size and scope proposed.

William Shirley returned to Albany, preoccupied with the need to manage the entire British war effort on the continent.

William Shirley had to pressure New England's governors to assign militia to the new posting for the winter.

William Shirley was unaware of this looming threat to his authority.

William Shirley continued to mobilize resources and personnel for at least the Oswego and Lake George efforts, but his authority was waning due to widespread knowledge of his replacement.

William Shirley raised detailed questions about Shirley's war-related expenditures, which he concluded was poorly disguised patronage spending.

William Shirley pointed out that British leadership could hardly expect preparations to cease in the interval between Loudoun's commission and his arrival to take command.

William Shirley would be formally replaced by Thomas Pownall in 1757.

William Shirley was not granted formal hearings on other aspects of his conduct, and managed to convince Newcastle to overlook the matter of his "muddled" accounts.

William Shirley's prospects brightened when Loudoun and Pownall were both damaged by the continued poor military performance in North America.

In late 1758 William Shirley was commissioned as Governor of the Bahamas.

William Shirley eventually arrived without incident or injury at Nassau and assumed the reins of power.

William Shirley's rule was quiet; dealing with smugglers in the islands was the major issue demanding the governor's attention.

William Shirley oversaw renovations to the governor's mansion, and promoted the construction of churches with funding from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

William Shirley returned to the islands, where he had to deal with protests of the recently enacted Stamp Act.

When he proposed the use of the stamps on official documents to the local assembly, the reaction in opposition was so visceral that William Shirley dissolved the body.

William Shirley sailed for Boston, where he took up residence in his old house in Roxbury with his daughter and son-in-law.

William Shirley married twice and had two sons and three daughters.

William Shirley built a family home in Roxbury between 1747 and 1751.

William Shirley sold it to his daughter and son-in-law, Eliakim Hutchinson, in 1763.

The town of William Shirley, Massachusetts, was founded during his term as Massachusetts governor.

William Shirley helped to establish a cod fishery in Winthrop in 1753.