Lady Juliana was born in 1729 at
Easton Neston,
Northamptonshire, the fourth daughter of
Thomas Fermor, 1st Earl of Pomfret and
Henrietta Louisa Jeffreys. On 22 August 1751, she married Thomas Penn, thirty years her senior. Thomas, formerly a
Quaker, attended
Anglican church services regularly after their marriage, though he did not take part in the sacrament of
Communion. The Penns lived at
Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire. They had eight children; four died in infancy or childhood, and daughter Juliana died in childbirth at age 19. Thomas Penn experienced declining health in the early 1770s, and as their sons
John Penn and
Granville Penn were still very young, Juliana took an active role in maintaining the proprietorship of Pennsylvania. She corresponded with Governor
John Penn (her husband's nephew) and other colonial officials, including discussing maps and other materials of administration. In March 1775, Thomas died; Juliana was appointed co-executor of her husband's personal estate. Soon after, events of the
American Revolutionary War deprived her family of the proprietorship of Pennsylvania, on which their wealth was based, and she wrote frequently to American leaders such as
Henry Laurens and
John Adams about "the cause of an Innocent and Suffering Family." Penn and her co-executor William Baker took an active interest in the survey of Susquehanna Land Company holdings in the
Wyoming Valley and wrote to
James Tilghman expressing their hopes for a favorable outcome. The Reverend
Jacob Duché wrote to
Benjamin Franklin about visiting "my most Amiable Friend Lady Juliana Penn," during an official trip to England in 1783.
John Jay wrote to Lady Juliana from the
Treaty of Paris (1783) negotiations, to keep her apprised of their progress. Penn died in 1801, aged 72, at
Beaufort House,
Ham. Her remains were buried with her husband's and with her children's, at
Stoke Poges. ==Legacy==