Birstall-born Joseph Priestley was father of modern chemistry

He was born in 1733 in Fieldhead, near Birstall. His parents were nonconformists. Joseph was five when his mother died, and he went to live with his aunt and uncle and attended Batley Grammar School.

His aunt desired that he became a church minister, so he went to Daventry Dissenting Academy and became a Minister in Suffolk. He moved to Nantwich, Cheshire, in 1758 and worked as a school master. He wrote The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761), widely acknowledged among scholars, and Warrington Academy offered him a post teaching languages, history, law and biology.

Joseph Priestley statue in Birstall, where he was born (Image: Dave Welbourne)

Joseph wrote to potter and businessman Josiah Wedgewood on subjects such as chemistry and scientific equipment. He was a prolific writer who believed in studying history to improve humanity and scientific progress. In 1762 he married Mary Wilkinson, sister of iron industrialist ‘Iron Mad’ Wilkinson, and moved back to Leeds in 1767. He preached at Mill Hill Chapel in Leeds City Square, where there is a statue to him. He became interested in electricity and after writing a paper on The History of Electricity was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Joseph Priestley statue in Leeds (Image: Dave Welbourne)

Turning to the study of gasses, he used facilities of a brewery near his home in Meadow Lane, where the old Tetley’s Brewery stood, and made studies which led to finding oxygen in 1774. He called it dephlogisticated air, but it was Lavoisier, whom he met in Paris that year, who renamed it oxygen. Through his experiments with gasses Joseph invented artificially carbonated water, which helped protect sailors on Cook’s voyage from scurvy. But it was a man called JJ Schweppe who saw the commercial potential and made a fortune out of soda water. Joseph also invented a rubber eraser, and even the word rubber.

Plaque dedicated to Joseph Priestley, at the chapel where he preached (Image: Dave Welbourne)

In 1773 Joseph moved to Calne in Wiltshire, to tutor Lord Shelbourne’s children. Joseph accompanied Shelbourne on a tour of Europe, and when he returned he became increasingly angry about the way Dissenters were treated. He later moved to Birmingham and continued his ministry, and chemical experiments on gasses. His six-volume work, Experiments and Observations on Different Types of Air, helped establish the new science of chemistry.

Dissenters were prohibited from going to university, and standing for Parliament. There was a growing demand for change, but the French Revolution put fear into Parliament. Dissenters such as Joseph came under attack, accused of wanting to overthrow the Government. He supported the campaign to abolish slavery and in 1788 published a sermon attacking the English for treating enslaved people more cruelly than any other nation. He also supported the American Revolution. In Britain tension was rising, with the fear of revolution, and there were attacks on supporters of the American and French Revolutions. In July 1791 Joseph and other Dissenters planned a dinner celebrating the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. Attendees were attacked by rioters and Priestley’s home was torched, destroying his laboratory. He and his wife fled, but during three days of rioting the homes of 26 other Dissenters, and three churches were destroyed. Historians are convinced the Birmingham Riots, also known as the Priestley Riots, were planned and condoned by magistrates.

Angry that he wasn’t compensated for the destruction of his Birmingham property, Joseph published a pamphlet attacking the Birmingham people for letting the riots occur. He was caricatured in cartoons, damning letters were sent to him comparing him to the devil and Guy Fawkes and his effigy was burned on bonfires.

The time had come to make a decision about his family’s future. Friends urged them to emigrate to France or America. Joseph was given French citizenship for serving the cause of liberty through his writings, which he accepted as a great honour, but as relations between France and Britain descended into war, the Priestleys felt it would be dangerous to move there. They left for America in April 1794, just before William Pitt’s Government began arresting radicals for seditious libel.

The Priestleys settled in Pennsylvania and Joseph preached at the Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. He became embroiled in politics and controversy, but made friends with Thomas Jefferson. He continued his scientific investigations, supported by the American Philosophical Society, who elected him a member in 1785.

On February 6, 1804 Joseph died, aged 70, and was buried in Pennsylvania. He published over 150 works in philosophy, history, education and theology. The “father of modern chemistry” inspired British radicalism in the 1790s and helped found Unitarianism. Admired by philosophers, scientists and poets, including Darwin, Coleridge, Wordsworth and John Stuart Mill, his political views did not endear him to the Establishment, which diminished his scientific standing in Britain. But he is remembered today: two educational institutions were named after him - Priestley College, Warrington and Leeds - an asteroid discovered in 1986 was named 5577 Priestley. there are statues in Birstall, Leeds and Birmingham and blue plaques in Leeds, Birmingham, Calne and Warrington; chemistry laboratories at Leeds University are named the Priestley Laboratories and the University of Huddersfield’s Applied Sciences department is the Joseph Priestley Building. In America the Priestley Award to a “distinguished scientist whose work has contributed to the welfare of humanity” has been presented since 1952 at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. The American Chemical Society’s highest honour is the Priestley medal. Not bad for a lad from Birstall.