07/04/2026
To mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this month's talk will be by RLHS's chair, Simon Targett, on the links between Richmond (and the local area) with British America and the War of Independence. We will be meeting as usual at Duke Street Church, Richmond on Monday 13 April at 8pm.
Richmond, the capital of Virginia, was named after what is now Richmond-upon-Thames by William Byrd, a wealthy plantation owner who had studied law in England and who was struck by the similarity between the bend in the James River as viewed from Libby Hill and the bend in Thames as viewed from Richmond Hill.
This is just one of many connections between Richmond (and Kew, Petersham, and Twickenham) and British America (up to 1776 and the American War of Independence). As Simon will explain in his talk, the first connections date back to the 1580s, when Sir Francis Drake held secret talks with Queen Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace about the land he named in her honour near what is now San Francisco.
After that, the connections deepened, and Simon will tell us about, among others, Matoaka (otherwise known as Pocahontas), Elihu Yale (after whom Yale University is named), Thomas Pownall (a former governor of Massachusetts), General William Howe
(Commander-in-Chief of the British Army during the War of Independence)—as well as future presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Dr Simon Targett is a writer, historian, and award-winning journalist. A former Associate Editor of the Financial Times, he is a Departmental Tutor at Oxford University, where he lectures on Anglo-American and media history. He is co-author of New World, Inc.: How England’s Merchants Founded America and Launched the British Empire (2018). He has a PhD in history from Cambridge University.
Portrait of Elizabeth I of England (the Armada Portrait), previously attributed to George Gowe
