"W" is for Wragg, William (ca. 1714-1777)

"W" is for Wragg, William (ca. 1714-1777). Loyalist. A native South Carolinian, Wragg was educated in England at Westminster, St. John’s College, Oxford, and the middle Temple. He was appointed to the Royal Council in 1753 and supported its positions in controversies with the Commons House. When Governor Lyttleton tried to appease the Commons House, Wragg vociferously defended the position of the Crown and the Council. Removed from the Council, he was elected to the Commons House. When he refused to support revolutionary activities, he was confined to his plantation and later banished from the state. In 1777, the ship carrying him to Europe foundered and he drowned trying to save his son. The English honored William Wragg’s loyalty with a tablet in his memory (now in Westminster Abbey)—the first erected for an American.