ABSTRACT
James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony of Georgia and planner of Savannah was a British army general, born in Surrey, who became the MP for Godalming in 1722. Oglethorpe and Granville Sharp can both be seen as progressives, both seeking to establish the urban structure and governance of new settlements on enlightenment principles. Savannah became famous for Oglethorpe's use of the grid square system. Writers have debated the extent to which this system derived from Vitruvian principles, channelled through Newcourt's unimplemented plan for London, from Roman colonial/military settlements such as Timgad in North Africa, or from Renaissance cities such as Turin. Both colonial pioneers were actively engaged in domestic radical politics – Oglethorpe in campaigns for prison reform; Sharp in the anti-slavery campaign and a series of campaigns for constitutional reform. Both saw colonial settlement as an opportunity to apply their egalitarian principles in a new setting.
