Francis Wharton

Who was Francis Wharton?

Francis Wharton was an American legal writer and educationalist.

He graduated at Yale in 1839, was admitted to the bar in 1843, became prominent in Pennsylvania politics as a Democrat, served as assistant attorney-general in 1845. In Philadelphia, he edited the North American and United States Gazette. He was professor of English history and literature at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, in 1856-1863.

He took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1862 and in 1863-1869 was rector of St. Paul's Church, Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1871-1881 he taught ecclesiastical polity and canon law in the Protestant Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at this time he lectured on the conflict of laws at Boston University.

For two years he traveled in Europe, and after two years in Philadelphia he went to Washington, DC, where he was lecturer on criminal law and then professor of criminal law at Columbian University; in 1885-1888 he was solicitor of the Department of State, and from 1888 until his death was employed on an edition of the Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, which superseded Jared Sparks's compilation.