These freely expressed views were considered seditious by English authorities and many citizens. In a mob destroyed his house and laboratory in Birmingham.
This episode and subsequent troubles made him decide to emigrate to the United States. With his sons he planned to set up a model community on undeveloped land in Pennsylvania, but like many such dreams, this one did not materialize.
He and his wife did, however, build a beautiful home equipped with a laboratory far up the Susquehanna River in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. British political caricaturist James Gillray, who opposed the Revolution, published this cartoon, A Birmingham toast, as given on the 14th of July , less than a week after the riots ended, mocking Priestley in the etching.
In preparing the publication Priestley began to perform experiments, at first merely to reproduce those reported in the literature but later to answer questions of his own. Joseph, being one of six children, only lived here a short time before being sent away to live with his uncle on a farm at Shafton until the age of four. A few years later, he returned to Fieldhead when his mother died but was soon sent away again to his aunt Sarah at Old Hall, Heckmondwike when his father remarried.
Plaque at Old Hall, Heckmondwike noting that Priestley lived there [1]. Here, he was raised as a Calvinist but, not content with being an ordinary non-conformist, by the time he was sixteen, he had already started to develop his own dissenting theology.
His intellectual talent was demonstrated by his ability to master the languages: French, Italian, German, Arabic, Syrian and Chaldean. Here, he gained the qualifications which allowed him to take appointments to minister at various non-conformist chapels around the country. W arrington The Old Warrington Academy where Priestley tutored [1]. But none of those revelations alone tells the whole story.
The next major discovery would come from a man whose early life gave no indication that he would become one of the greatest experimental chemists in history. In , Priestley was offered a ministry in Leeds, Englane, located near a brewery. He found a way to produce artificially what occurred naturally in beer and champagne: water containing the effervescence of carbon dioxide.
The method earned the Royal Society's coveted Copley Prize and was the precursor of the modern soft-drink industry. Joseph Priestley was born in Yorkshire, the eldest son of a maker of wool cloth. His mother died after bearing six children in six years. Young Joseph was sent to live with his aunt, Sarah Priestley Keighley, until the age of She often entertained Presbyterian clergy at her home, and Joseph gradually came to prefer their doctrines to the grimmer Calvinism of his father.
Before long, he was encouraged to study for the ministry. And study, as it turned out, was something Joseph Priestley did very well. Aside from what he learned in the local schools, he taught himself Latin, Greek, French, Italian, German and a smattering of Middle Eastern languages, along with mathematics and philosophy.
This preparation would have been ideal for study at Oxford or Cambridge, but as a Dissenter someone who was not a member of the Church of England Priestley was barred from England's great universities. So he enrolled at Daventry Academy, a celebrated school for Dissenters, and was exempted from a year of classes because of his achievements. After graduation, he supported himself, as he would for the rest of his life, by teaching, tutoring and preaching.
His first full-time teaching position was at the Dissenting Academy in Warrington. Although obviously brilliant, original, outspoken and, by one report, of "a gay and airy disposition," Priestley had an unpleasant voice and a sort of stammer. That he made a living through lectures and sermons is further evidence of his extraordinary nature. In , he was ordained and married Mary Wilkinson, the daughter of a prominent iron-works owner.
She was, he noted, "of an excellent understanding, much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous; feeling strongly for others and little for herself.
Priestley traveled regularly to London, and became acquainted with numerous men of science and independent thought, including an ingenious American named Benjamin Franklin, who became a lifelong friend. For that work, and his growing reputation as an experimenter, Priestley was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in The History book was too tough for a popular audience, and Priestley determined to write a more accessible one.
But he could find no one to create the necessary illustrations. So, in typical fashion, he taught himself perspective drawing. Along the way, he made many mistakes, and discovered that India rubber would erase lead pencil lines — a fact he mentioned in the preface.
By the age of 34, Priestley was a well-established and respected member of Britain's scientific community. He was still paying a price for his religious nonconformity, however. When the explorer Captain James Cook was preparing for his second voyage, Priestley was offered the position of science adviser. But the offer was rescinded under pressure from Anglican authorities who protested his theology, which was evolving into a strongly Unitarian position that denied the doctrine of the trinity.
In retrospect, the Cook affair may have been all for the best. In , the Earl of Shelburne asked Priestley to serve as a sort of intellectual companion, tutor for the earl's offspring, and librarian for his estate, Bowood House. The position provided access to social and political circles Priestley could never have gained on his own, while leaving ample free time for the research that would earn him a permanent place in scientific history. He systematically analyzed the properties of different "airs" using the favored apparatus of the day: an inverted container on a raised platform that could capture the gases produced by various experiments below it.
The container could also be placed in a pool of water or mercury, effectively sealing it, and a gas tested to see if it would sustain a flame or support life. In the course of these experiments, Priestley made an enormously important observation. A flame went out when placed in a jar in which a mouse would die due to lack of air. Putting a green plant in the jar and exposing it to sunlight would "refresh" the air, permitting a flame to burn and a mouse to breathe.
Priestly was also the creator behind carbonated water. He dubbed it "mephetic julep" and hoped that it would be of use for sailors undertaking long voyages to prevent scurvy. He also invented the rubber eraser, and wrote an important paper early on about electricity which was encouraged by his friend, Benjamin Franklin.
A deep lover of politics, and known for being a Liberal political theorist, he also wrote heavily on these topics. In fact, his unorthodox writings, coupled with his ardent support for the American and French revolutions meant he was shunned by many his countrymen and was forced to flee England.
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