Oglethorpe, << OH guhl `thawrp,` >> James Edward (1696-1785), an Englishman, was the founder of the colony of Georgia. He was born in London on Dec. 22, 1696, and attended Eton and Oxford. He joined the British Army at 14. He was elected to Parliament in 1722. There, he became interested in people who had been imprisoned for not paying their debts. Oglethorpe hoped to help them by establishing an American colony for debtors. In 1732, he and a group of associates received a charter from George II for the colony, which was to be established on territory between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers. Parliament also granted him $50,000.
Oglethorpe and about 120 colonists arrived in America in January 1733. The next month, he set up his first settlement where the city of Savannah now stands. Few debtors ever came to the new colony, however. Oglethorpe governed wisely for nine years and drove invading Spanish troops back into Florida. He defeated the Spaniards badly in the Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simons Island, in 1742.
Oglethorpe was so much in debt from his loans to colonists that he had to return to England in 1743. His enemies called him a coward for not capturing St. Augustine, Florida, when he attacked the Spaniards there in 1743. A court-martial dismissed the charges. He and the other trustees returned the Georgia charter to George II in 1752, and Georgia became a royal province. Oglethorpe died on June 30, 1785.
