Francis Brinley place of birth England
Colonel Francis Brinley (1690 – November 27, 1765) was an American landowner, government official, philanthropist and military officer best known for being the subject of a portrait by John Smibert which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brinley, though he was born and died in England, spent most of his life in colonial Massachusetts as a prosperous landholder who was involved with several colonization projects throughout the region. 
Born in 1690 in London to American colonists who had moved back to England, Brinley spent the first two decades of his life in Europe before moving back to North America in order to inherit the estate of his grandfather in Massachusetts. In 1719, his grandfather died and left his estate to Brinley, who settled down in Massachusetts and constructed a large colonial mansion for himself known as Datchet House in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury.
In 1718, Brinley married a wealthy heiress from Boston named Deborah Lyde. Over the following decades, Brinley established himself as a prominent member of the American gentry, acquiring landholdings and slaves and sponsoring charitable organizations. He also served in several offices in the colonial government of Massachusetts, being successively appointed as an assistant-surveyor, deputy surveyor-general and a justice of the peace. 
Brinley also became involved in colonization schemes, buying land in Suffield, Connecticut in 1735 and Framingham, Massachusetts in 1742. Upon the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754, he was promoted to the rank of colonel in the colonial militia. Brinley served throughout the entire duration of the war, though he personally never saw combat. After the war's end in 1763, Brinley travelled back to England, dying in London in 1765.Early life
Francis Brinley was born in 1690 in London, England. Both of his parents were American colonists who had emigrated to England at some point in time prior to Brinley's birth. Brinley's father was Thomas Brinley, who was born in Newport, Rhode Island; his mother was Catherine Page, who was from Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up, Brinley was sent by his parents to be educated at Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire.In 1710, after living in England for two decades, Brinley returned to British North America in the hopes that he might inherit the vast personal fortune of his grandfather, who lived in Massachusetts and was also named Francis Brinley (and for whom the younger Brinley was named). When the senior Brinley died in 1719, he left his entire estate in his last will and testament to his grandson, which included a large collection of household silverware.Now in possession of a "considerable fortune", Brinley decided to settle down in Massachusetts as a member of the American gentry. He ordered the construction of a lavish colonial mansion known as Datchet House in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury using his inheritance, which was "one of the most splendid residences in the colony at that time." One of Brinley's descendants claimed in an 1853 book that the mansion was modeled after an English country house near the Berkshire village of Datchet, which the descendant also claimed the mansion was named after.
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