Born: 1710
Married: Betty Harrison on March 8, 1746
Died: October 22, 1775
Burial: initially at Christ's Church in Philadelphia, moved to the family crypt in the Chapel at the College of William and Mary and re-interred there on November 26, 1776
Will:
Parents: Sir John Randolph and Susannah Beverley
Children:
none
Peyton Randolph was born into a family of wealth and privilege in Williamsburg. His father was Attorney General of the Virginia colony, and also Speaker of the House of Burgesses. When Sir John Randolph died, Peyton inherited his library and chose to follow his father's wishes that he study law. He went to the College of William & Mary, then crossed the Atlantic Ocean to study at the Inns of Court between 1739-1743.
After returning to Williamsburg, Governor William Gooch appointed him Attorney General of the colony on on May 7, 1744. In 1748, he was elected to the House of Burgesses as a representative from Williamsburg. In 1752, he was chosen by the college of William & Mary to be their representative to the legislature.
He went back to England as a lobbyist for the House of Burgesses, which opposed Governor Robert Dinwiddie's imposition of a fee for signing land patents. Dinwiddie sought to charge a "pistole fee" (about 20 shillings) in order to generate a personal income separate from his salary as governor. Many colonial officials relied upon such fees for their income, but the House of Burgesses viewed itself as having sole authority to raises taxes and authorize fees. A century earlier Parliament had opposed "ship fees" imposed unilaterally by Charles I, and Peyton Randolph went to England to have Gov. Dinwiddie's pistole fee blocked by officials in London.
The governor refused to grant Peyton Randloph permission to sail to London for that purpose. When he left anyway, Dinwiddie removed him from the office of Attorney General and appointed George Wythe as the replacement. In the end, Randlph apologized, Dinwiddie stopped collecting the fee, and Randolph was re-appointed as Attorney General when he returned to Virginia.
In 1765, Peyton Randolph chaired the committee appointed by the House of Burgesses to prepare a protest against the Stamp Act. Patrick Henry, serving in his first session of the colonial legislature, introduced multiple resolutions at the end of the meeting of the House of Burgesses. John Robinson was Speaker of the House, but Peyton Randolph was chairing the meeting that day. Many of the more-conservative members had already left for home, but his dramatic speech caused others still in the Capitol to shout out that Henry was close to advocating treason when he suggested George III would meet the same fate as Caesar and Charles I.
The burgesses approved five of Henry's resolutions, by a one-vote margin. Thomas Jefferson said later that he heard Peyton Randolph say immediately afterwards "By God, I would have given one hundred guineas for a single vote."
After John Robinson died, the burgesses elected Peyton Randolph as the Speaker of the House on November 6, 1766. After that, his brother John Randolph II became Attorney General. Brother John became known as "the Tory" because he was a Loyalist who supported King George III and Parliament, and fled to England at the start of the American Revolution. Peyton Randolph made the other choice.
Patriot Peyton Randolph went on to chair an unauthorized meeting of the legislators in 1769 at the Raleigh Tavern that adopted a non-importation agreement, as the colonial leaders applied economic sanctions agains England in response to the Townshend Duties. He chaired the Virginia Committee of Correspondence that helped synchronize actions by the colonies. In 1774, the First Virginia Convention elected his as one of Virginia's seven delegates to the Continental Congress which met for the first time in Philadelphia. He was elected unanimously on September 5, 1775 as chair of the Continental Congress.
He was chairing the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond when Patrick Henry made his "give me liberty or give me death" speech in St. John's Church. In Boston, General Thomas Gage had blank warrants which he could fill out to authorize execution of the rebellious American leaders, and the general's list of names to be entered when captured included Peyton Randolph.
Peyton Randolph returned to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775, where John Hancock was serving as chair. He suffered a stroke and died while in Philadelphia.1