Life

Furly was born at Colchester

Colchester

Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...

 13 April 1636, began life as a merchant there, and joined the early Quakers. In 1659–60 he assisted John Stubbs

John Stubbs

John Stubbs was an English pamphleteer or political commentator during the Elizabethan era.He was born in Norfolk, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. After studying law at Lincoln's Inn, he lived at Thelveton, Norfolk...

 in the compilation of the 'Battle-Door.' George Fox

George Fox

George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...

 records that this work was finished in 1661, and that Furly took great pains with it.

Some time previous to 1677 he went to live at Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

, where he set up as a merchant in the Scheepmaker's Haven. In 1677 George Fox stayed and held religious meetings at Furly's house in Rotterdam, and Furly then accompanied Fox, Keith, and others through Holland and Germany, acting as an interpreter. Later on in the same year he made a ministerial journey with William Penn

William Penn

William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...

. His house became the rendezvous of Jean Leclerc

Jean Leclerc (theologian)

Jean Le Clerc, also Johannes Clericus was a Swiss theologian and biblical scholar. He was famous for promoting exegesis, or critical interpretation of the Bible, and was a radical of his age...

, Philip van Limborch, and other scholar, and there he entertained Algernon Sydney

Algernon Sydney

Algernon Sidney or Sydney was an English politician, republican political theorist, colonel, and opponent of King Charles II of England, who became involved in a plot against the King and was executed for treason.-Early life:Sidney's father was Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, a direct...

, Locke (1686–88), and Locke's pupil, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1688–89). Sydney constantly wrote to him from 1677 to 1679. Edward Clarke of Chipley seems to have introduced Locke to him, and their correspondence lasted as long as Locke lived. Locke delighted in playing with Furly's children.

Subsequently Furly renounced quakerism, again embraced it, but is supposed finally to have left it. He died at Rotterdam in 1714.

Works

Furly's works include:

• 'A Battle-Door for Teachers and Professors to learn Singular and Plural,' &c. (in thirty-five languages), with Stubbs and Fox, 1660.
• Preface to Ames's 'Die Sache Christi und seines Volks,' 1662.
• 'The World's Honour detected, and, for the Unprofitableness thereof, rejected,' &c., 1663.

He also wrote a number of prefaces to the works of other men, assisted George Keith

George Keith

George Keith was a Scottish missionary.-Life:Born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to a Presbyterian family, he received an M.A. from the University of Aberdeen...

 in writing 'The Universal Free Grace of the Gospel asserted,' and translated several works into English from the Dutch.

Furly's library was sold by auction, and a catalogue, 'Bibliotheca Furleiana,' was published (1714).

Family

He was twice married. On the death of his first wife in 1691, Locke sent a letter of condolence. By her he had three sons, Benjohan (b. 1681), John, and Arent. The two eldest were merchants. The youngest was secretary to the Earl of Peterborough

Earl of Peterborough

Earl of Peterborough was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1628 for John Mordaunt, 5th Baron Mordaunt . He was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry, the second Earl. He was a soldier and courtier. Lord Peterborough had two daughters but no sons...

 in Spain, and died there in 1705. Benjohan's daughter, Dorothy, married Thomas Forster, whose sons were Benjamin Forster

Benjamin Forster (antiquary)

Benjamin Forster was an English antiquary.Forster was born in Walbrook, London on 7 August 1736. He was the third son of Thomas Forster, a descendant of the Forsters of Etherston and Bamborough in Northumberland, and his wife Dorothy, granddaughter of Benjamin Furly, the friend and correspondent...

 and Edward Forster. Edward's grandson, Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster

Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster

Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster was an astronomer and naturalist.His father, a botanist, was a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As early as 1805 he had compiled a "Journal of the Weather" and had published his Liber Rerum Naturalium. A year later, inspired by Gall's works, he took up the study of...

, inherited much of Furly's correspondence, and printed part of his collection as 'Original Letters of Locke, Shaftesbury, and Sydney' in 1830, reissuing it in his privately printed 'Epistolarium' in 1830, 2nd edit. 1847. Much of Shaftesbury's correspondence with Furly went to the Public Record Office

Public Record Office

The Public Record Office of the United Kingdom is one of the three organisations that make up the National Archives...

.