Robert Plunkett

Rev. Robert Plunkett (died 1815)^[1] was the first President of Georgetown University.

An alumnus of English College, Douai, Plunkett was named to the position by John Carroll, the founder of Georgetown University. He sailed with Father Charles Neale, S.J. (whose two brothers, Father Francis Neale, S.J. and the Most Reverend Leonard Neale, S.J., would eventually become Presidents of Georgetown) in 1790 to the United States to become a missionary at White Marsh. In 1791, Carroll persuaded the reluctant Plunkett to accept the position.^[2]

Plunkett oversaw the division of the university into three parts: "college", "preparatory", and "elementary".^[3]

After eighteen months in office, Plunkett stepped down as the President of Georgetown University and was succeeded by Father Robert Molyneux, S.J. in 1793.^[3]

References

1. Currier, Charles Warren (1890). Carmel in America: A Centennial History of the Discalced Carmelites in the United States. Baltimore, M.D.: John Murphy & Co.
2. Curran, Robert Emmett (1993). The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. ISBN 0-87840-485-6.
3. O'Neill, Paul R.; Paul K. Williams (2003). Georgetown University. Arcadia. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-0-7385-1509-0.