Vaughan was born in
Jamaica to
Samuel Vaughan, a British banker and West India merchant planter of Irish Protestant descent, and his Anglo-American wife, Sarah Hallowell, daughter of shipbuilder, Benjamin Hallowell. He was educated at
Newcome's School and
Warrington Academy and attended
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, without graduating. He then studied medicine at the
University of Edinburgh. In 1785, during his stay in Edinburgh, he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were
Allan Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank,
Dugald Stewart, and
James Hutton. His broader long-term interest was in politics and sciences, the latter leading to his friendship with
Benjamin Franklin. In 1786, Vaughan was elected a member of the
American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, to which his father,
Samuel Vaughan, had been elected a member two years prior. Vaughan was a political economist, merchant and medical doctor. Through Benjamin Horne, brother of
John Horne, he met the politician
Lord Shelburne. Shelburne then used Vaughan in a diplomatic role, to try to bring peace between Great Britain and the United States, towards the end of the
American War of Independence. He was also a middleman in reconciling Franklin and Shelburne. He was elected at a by-election in 1792 as a
Member of Parliament (MP) for the
borough of Calne in
Wiltshire, and held the seat until the
1796 general election (he was absent from 1794). He spoke in parliament in strong defence of
slavery in Jamaica, in his maiden speech. However, in February 1794, he came out in favour of the
abolition of the slave trade. After 1794, Vaughan left France for Switzerland and later to America. His interest in republicanism lead to his permanent departure from
Britain. He settled in
Boston and then on a farm in
Hallowell, Maine in 1797. He is thought to be the builder (or related to the builder) of Hallowell House in
Boston, and it is possible his Jamaican links give rise to the district being called
Jamaica Plain. In 1805, Vaughan was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1813, he was elected a member of the
American Antiquarian Society. He died in Hallowell in 1835. ==Family==