Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford, (18 October 1774 – 2 December 1852) was a

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

. She is the first American to be known as a Reichsgräfin or Imperial Countess, a

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

title granted by the

Electorate of Bavaria The Electorate of Bavaria () was a quasi-independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Wittelsbach dynasty which ruled the Duchy of Bavaria was the younger ...

.Metcalf, p. 84
/ref> Both her parents were born and brought up in the American

colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...

and married there in 1772. During the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

of 1775 to 1783, her father

Benjamin Thompson Colonel (United Kingdom), Colonel Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (26 March 175321 August 1814), was an American-born British military officer, scientist and inventor. Born in Woburn, Massachusetts, he sup ...

took the side of the British, and at the end of the war he moved to London. He was

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

ed in 1784.

References

External links

*
Count Rumford – General Benjamin Thompson additional family history
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Sarah 1774 births 1852 deaths Countesses in Germany People from Concord, New Hampshire People of New Hampshire in the American Revolution Counts of the Holy Roman Empire