Benjamin Franklin was the most consequential American of the eighteenth century who never held a head-of-state title. He was a printer, then a wealthy retired printer at forty-two, then a scientist whose lightning experiments earned him a Royal Society Copley Medal, then a diplomat who petitioned Parliament on the colonies' tax grievances and later went to France to secure the alliance that won the Revolutionary War. He helped draft and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787, and was the only Founding Father to sign all four of the foundational American documents: the Declaration, the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France, the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution. His best-known inventions include bifocals, the lightning rod, and the Franklin stove. As an inventor, his largest creation was arguably the United States of America.

This figure shows Franklin in the classic Founding Father dress — coat and waistcoat, knee breeches, wig, the dignified standing pose of the elder statesman that fixed his image in the period record. He pairs naturally with the other founding-era figures Breagans carries — Alexander Hamilton 1783, Thomas Jefferson No.2, Marquis de Lafayette 1783, and General Washington Mounted — for a full Founding Fathers display, and sits in the W. Britain Museum Collection of named historical individuals.

1/30 scale (60mm), matte-painted, single figure boxed. Catalog number 10114. As with the rest of the W. Britain modern range, the painting is photographic-quality detail intended to read well in dioramas and display cases.