Izard, Ralph, c. 1742-1804

Ralph Izard (January 23, 1741/1742 – May 30, 1804) was an American planter, diplomat, and politician from Charleston County, South Carolina. He notably served as a Delegate to the Continental Congress and as one of South Carolina's first two United States Senators.

Born at The Elms, his family's plantation near Charleston in the Province of South Carolina, Izard spent most of his childhood and youth studying in England: he attended a school in Hackney, London, and matriculated as a fellow-commoner at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. After briefly returning to South Carolina, Izard returned to Europe, residing in London and Paris before being appointed commissioner to the Court of Tuscany by the Continental Congress in 1776, but was recalled in 1779. He returned to America in 1780 and pledged his large estate in South Carolina for the payment of war ships to be used in the American Revolutionary War. He was a member of the Continental Congress in 1782 and 1783. In 1788, he was elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1789, to March 4, 1795, serving as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Third Congress.

Izard retired from public life to the care of his estates in 1795. Within two years of his retirement, he was stricken with an untreatable illness that paralyzed him on one side of his body. Izard died near Charleston and was interred in the churchyard of St. James Goose Creek Episcopal Church in Berkeley County, South Carolina.