John Hancock was significant figure in the American Revolution and one of prime movers of the Boston Tea Party 250 years ago

He was the first signatory to the Declaration of Independence and is remembered for his large and flamboyant signature on the document but he probably never said: ‘There, I guess King George will be able to read that!’ However, his name is a synonym for one’s signature in the US.

Despite his lack of military experience, he allegedly aspired to command the Continental Army and was miffed when George Washington was given the role.

A degree of scepticism is appropriate here. Relations between Hancock and Washington remained friendly and in 1778 Hancock even named his only son after Washington. Hancock never deviated in his admiration and support for Washington, even though Washington politely (and wisely) declined Hancock's request for a military appointment because Hancock was completely devoid of military acumen.

As well as being a signatory to the Declaration, Hancock was also a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and deployed his influence to ensure that Massachusetts ratified the US Constitution.

However, there is an episode prior to the American Revolution about which he remained coy, namely the Boston Tea Party.

On December 16 1773, 50 to 60 members of the so-called Sons of Liberty, lightly disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded three ships – the Dartmouth, the Beaver and the Eleanor – in Boston Harbour.

Joshua Wyeth, one of the participants, was a journeyman blacksmith. He explained that most of those involved were ‘young men, not much known in town and not liable to be easily recognised’ and that they were mainly ‘apprentices and journeymen’ like himself, but the participants included a number of merchants, a doctor and Paul Revere, a politically active silversmith of Huguenot descent (Revere is best known for his midnight ride in April 1775 to alert the colonial militia to the imminent arrival of British forces prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord.)

Over the course of three hours they broke open 340 chests of tea and dumped the contents into the harbour, destroying cargo worth almost £10,000 belonging to the East India Company.

In 1773 Parliament had granted the East India Company a monopoly on tea shipment to the American colonies. To add insult to injury, London directed the trade through selected loyalist merchants, including the sons of Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts.

The issue was not about high or higher taxes but whether London had the right to impose taxes on the colonies at all. On the contrary, the price of legally imported tea was actually being reduced, undercutting American merchants, even those selling smuggled tea.

The central grievance of the colonists is neatly encapsulated in the rallying cry of ‘no taxation without representation’.

The government in London genuinely could not grasp the colonists’ case. It took it as axiomatic that London should control the Empire in all things and that it was only right and proper that the colonists should contribute towards the cost of their defence.

Furthermore, since the people of Birmingham had no representation in Parliament at this stage, the government did not think it strange that the people of Boston had no representation in Parliament either.

The prime movers in Boston Tea Party were Samuel Adams (the man usually credited with devising the slogan ‘no taxation without representation’) and John Hancock.

Samuel Adams was a brilliant polemicist, Clerk of the Lower House of the Massachusetts Assembly and probably the most influential figure in Boston politics.

Although he was a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, in time he was completely overshadowed by his young cousin, John Adams, the second president of the United States.

Hancock might be initially regarded as Adams’ protégé.

He was one of the wealthiest men in New England, having inherited a profitable mercantile business from his uncle. This wealth may have been augmented by smuggling but no documentary evidence exists to corroborate the charge.

What is not in doubt is that Hancock used his wealth and influence to aid the movement for American independence.

Hancock was at the meeting before the Tea Party on December 16 and told the crowd, ‘Let every man do what is right in his own eyes’. He did not take part in the Tea Party but he approved of it. However, he was extremely careful not to publicly praise the destruction of private property.

Adams had no such inhibitions. He defended the Tea Party and insisted that it was not the act of a lawless mob, but a principled protest and the only remaining option the people had to defend their constitutional rights.

Despite his role in the American Revolution, John Hancock was largely consigned to oblivion for the greater part of the 19th century. His home was even demolished in 1863.

Boston’s conservative ruling and commercial elite had no time for a wealthy man who bankrolled revolution. Matters changed briefly after 1876 – with the centennial of the Declaration of Independence – when plaques were erected in the city memorialising Hancock and in 1896 a column was erected at his almost hitherto unmarked grave.

Hancock’s reputation did not fare much better for most of the 20th century either but since the 1970s – and the approach of the bicentennial – Hancock and even more so the Tea Party have been rediscovered by opposite ends of the political spectrum. Two examples will suffice.

In 1973 left-wing protestors in Boston invoked the Tea Party and called for the impeachment of President Nixon.

On the right of the spectrum, a little over a decade ago the Tea Party movement, stern advocates of small government and implacable opponents of government-sponsored universal healthcare, captured the Republican Party.

Although the Tea Party movement is now defunct, both Donald Trump’s success in the presidential election of 2016 and the turmoil in which the GOP currently finds itself are its legacy.