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Joseph Priestley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Joseph Priestley (March 13, 1733-February 6, 1804) was an English chemist, dissenting clergyman, and educator. |
He was born in
Birstall parish, 6 miles from Leeds, Yorkshire. He learned a variety of
languages, both classical and modern, in his youth, including several
Semitic languages; he also studied what was then called "natural
history."
In 1751 he entered
Daventry, a school under Nonconformist auspices, and there his
religious views took shape. He became an adherent of Arianism. In
September, 1755, he started as a parish minister in Surrey, though he
was not officially ordained until May 18, 1762. Because he stammered
and the parish was not suited to his heterodox ideas, nor did they want
a bachelor for their minister, he was unpopular in his Surrey parish
and he ultimately went to Nantwich, Cheshire. He established a private
school in connection with the church in Nantwich where hepreached, and
derived his income from that school.
Subsequently he went
to Warrington, the biggest of the dissenting academies in England, as a
tutor in belles-lettres. By this time his religious ideas had matured
to a form of Unitarianism, Socinianism. At Warrington, he associated
with other liberal-minded tutors and found an intelligent printer,
William Eyres, willing to publish Priestley's work. It was here that he
published his grammar book in 1761 (a remarkably liberal grammar for
its day) and other books on history and educational theory. He taught
anatomy and astronomy and led field trips for his students to collect
fossils and botanical specimens. Both modern history and the sciences
were subjects which had not been taught in any schools before
Priestley.
On June 23, 1762,
Priestley married Mary Wilkinson of Wrexham, and by September, 1767 the
combination of his finances and her health caused him to relocate to
Leeds. He there took charge of the Mill Hill congregation until
December 1772. Then he was hired by William Petty, Lord Shelburne, as
his personal librarian, and stayed in that post until 1780.
Whilst tutoring his
benefactor's sons at Bowood House in 1774 he discovered oxygen, though
a previous discovery by Karl Wilhelm Scheele, independently made, has
actual priority. However he never recognized it as an element. He named
the new gas (which he had generated by heating red mercuric oxide with
a 'burning lens') 'de-phlogisticated air', in accordance with the
Phlogiston theory which held at the time. In his experiments he managed
to identify eight distinct gases, in contrast with the commonly held
view of the time that there was just one 'air'.
In 1780 he moved to
Birmingham and was appointed junior minister of the New Meeting
Society. He became a member of the Lunar Society, but was driven out of
the city in the Priestley Riots. He is remembered there by the
Moonstones, and a more traditional statue.
He next moved to
London where he received an invitation to become morning preacher at
Gravel Pit Chapel, Hackney. His three sons emigrated to the United
States in 1793, and in the following June Priestley followed them,
seeking political and religious freedom. Although never being
naturalized, he lived in Pennsylvania for the rest of his life.
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