Although it is very challenging to speak accurately of 'popular opinion' in an age when the vast majority of people could not vote and representative democracy as we think of it today was still in its infancy and scarcely authentically democratic on either side of the Atlantic, in terms of the perception of the British elite, George Washington was regarded generally favourably during the course of the American Revolution in contrast to most other individuals and organisations involved in the secession of the future United States from the metropole (the name historians give to the country at the centre of a colonial empire). This was a period in British history in which the vast majority of people were gaining access to meaningful news for the first time; there were well more than one hundred newspapers in circulation in England in the late 18th century, and the vast, vast majority of people had access to printed news (which at the time was also synonymous with 'printed opinion' - newspapers in British culture have always been openly ideological and often explicitly partisan - though this trend was greatly weakening in the 18th century thanks to the advent of newspaper advertising as an independent revenue stream for the media, and so appealing to a diverse readership was highly profitable by the late 1700s); the widespread proliferation of print news media meant that even the illiterate had access to news thanks both to informal community practices of verbalising written content for the illiterate and the proliferation of political discussion that the booming print media industry enabled. The extent to which ordinary people took an interest in or had their views on figures as specific as George Washington is impossible to know, but we can certainly understand what the people writing newspapers on different sides of Britain's political divide thought about him, and this would have been the primary source of information the vast majority of Britons had on the rebellion-leading General over the Atlantic Ocean.

Overwhelmingly, British newspapers reported on George Washington as an individual of upstanding character. This is owed partly due to the fact that, as someone hitherto unknown in British public life outside of some small corners of the establishment, the biographical information available initially to journalists focused on his previous military service for the British Crown. It helped too that there was a strong perception in the British political establishment that the Revolution was largely an enterprise driven by secessionist sentiment in New England which had dragged other, less 'free thinking' colonies into a state of rebellion against the metropole - as a wealthy member of Virginia's plantation owning psuedo-aristocracy, and as someone who kept himself at the time removed from the day to day politics of the revolutionaries, Washington was painted as an upstanding country gentleman and a competent military leader who was simply working to fulfill an understandable civic duty to his homeland. British writers did not think of Washington as the leader of the revolution or an ideological architect of the values of the future American Republican; instead, they frame Washington as a pragmatic, cold-minded public servant who deferred to the political judgements of the revolutionary authorities, and so the British press could hold him up as someone acceptable to admire and respect. And whilst it seems genuine pro-American sentiment was exceedingly rare in Britain and the vast majority of people agreed with the decision to prosecute a war against the rebelling colonies, Washington became something of an icon for the many people in Britain with legitimate frustrations about political corruption and a perceived lack of virtue in public life.

That is not to say there weren't dissenting voices. There were some in the British press who warned about the risk of George Washington taking advantage of his station to become the absolute military dictator of the thirteen colonies if the revolutionaries had their way, and many others who claimed his abilities were over-stated and exaggerated on both sides of the Atlantic; that the former did not happen only served to lend further credit to the case made by those sympathetic to Washington, whilst other anti-Washington voices were very much drowned out by those more sympathetic to his character. That the war itself was not terribly popular helped matters too: it was seen in Britain as the product of squabbling selfish elites in America rather than a genuine popular uprising of any kind, and there was accordingly not much sympathy for a prolonged conflict that would cost the lives of civilians who were seen to some extent as countrymen and countrywomen. Though the British mainstream absolutely favoured military action and the resolution of the conflict in favour of keeping the colonies within Britain's imperial dominion there was also a strong desire for the war to be ended quickly and with minimal loss of life; as it became clear that was not going to happen, and as the War began to turn sour, no British military or political leader could emerge as an icon to unite the nation behind. To some extent, Washington was able to fill that gap on the British side as well, not as a political figure, but as a moral figure all sides of British public life could unite in admiration for.

As for the modern era, British scholars of American history still rate Washington exceptionally favourably compared to other United States presidents - a 2010 study of 47 American History specialists at UK universities found scholars on average ranked George Washington as the third 'best' President in American history in terms of their political vision, ability to implement that vision, and ability to advance American interests on the world stage among others. Washington was beaten out by Abraham Lincoln in second place and Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) in first. This is slightly different to what American surveys have found: usually the ranking in American studies goes Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt. Although the author's of the UK study suggest Roosevelt ranks first because the survey was taken around the time of the Global Financial Crisis and its fallout, I would suggest differences in American and British political culture also have a role to play; America's political centre of gravity has since the middle of the 20th century been significantly to the right of the UK's (a useful illustrative contemporary example is that Barack Obama's 2012 Campaign Manager, who no one can accuse of being a Republican, worked for the UK's Conservative Party from 2013 - 2017), and FDR's policies during his Presidency better reflect what the average British citizen would expect from a political leader on the left of centre. UK scholars were generally more policy-focused in their assessment of each President: JFK, for example, is viewed much more modestly by British experts than American ones, whilst Reagan (who is in many ways a direct parallel to Margaret Thatcher in the history of both countries) faired better. In any event the slight difference in Washington's ranking is probably more down to a greater celebration of FDR's achievements than a lesser one of Washington's.

In terms of public opinion in Britain today - well, I'm afraid the simple truth is that there probably isn't a public opinion to speak of. These is no requirement for the American War of Independence to be taught in schools in the UK and where it is covered, it is usually included as part of a wider study of conflict and Empire in the period (the official Government advice is that it should be taught alongside the Seven Years' War as part of a study of British political and economic history from c1750 - c1900). School children are rather more likely today to learn about the civil rights movement in the 1960s than they are about the Revolutionary War and George Washington. Though absolutely a significant event in global history, from the perspective of a national curriculum that aims primarily - for better or worse - to equip pupils with a rigorous understanding of the formation of British national identity and major events in domestic history, the independence of the United States is something of a footnote in British history when you have limited curriculum space. Contrary to the popular image the American approach to schooling on the topic sometimes creates of how people in the UK feel about the topic, the level of culture understanding of the dynamics at play in the American War of Independence in Britain is low, and there is no lingering animosity or sense of embarrassment at how the Revolutionary War went. George Washington is, accordingly, not a figure of any particular significance in popular culture one way or the other in modern Britain, and it is entirely possible to go through one's entire compulsory schooling without ever learning a single detail of the man or his life.