Joseph Priestley: 3/13/1733 – 2/6/1804

May 1, 1983
Lakeland

On April 13, our U.S. Government issued a 20¢ stamp bearing the likeness of a controversial Unitarian clergyman, who had an impediment in his speech, was considered a dangerous radical in his native England, and who immigrated to the U.S. because of danger to his life in his native land. One can be confident that these were not the reasons why he became a face on the 20¢ stamp.

March 13 marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Priestley, one of the most remarkable men of the 18th century. He was a self-taught experimental scientist. The American Chemical Society, whose highest award is named the Joseph Priestley Medal, is observing year-long attention to Priestley’s pioneering scientific work. Also, Priestley was one of the most important persons involved in the development of the Unitarian movement in England and the U.S. His life is astonishing in the amount of work he did, minister, teacher, experimental scientist, theologian, church historian. This quantity of work was done well. No wonder he was admired by two American geniuses, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

In a brief talk, one can only touch upon the many phases of Priestley’s genius. I’m not sure what a genius is – but looking at Priestley’s life, I surmise that genius is comprised at the very least of an open, inquiring, imaginative mind coupled with a large capacity for persistent hard work.

Joseph Priestley was born March 13, 1733 near Leeds in Yorkshire, England, the son of Jonas Priestley. Mrs. Priestley, his mother, died in 1740, but young Joseph remembered how she had taught him catechism. He also noted in his memoirs how when his mother found him playing with a pin, asked him where he got it, and when she found he had found it at his uncle’s, she made him carry it back.

Shortly after his mother’s death Joseph was given over to the care of his aunt and her husband, who took care that young Priestley was properly educated. Much of his education [was] under Mr. Hague, a clergyman. Between the ages of 12 and 15, Priestley was taught Latin and Greek; [he] commented, “I learned Hebrew on holidays.” On his own, he also learned French, Italian, and High Dutch.

He wanted to become a minister. His family were Dissenters, but strict Calvinists. His aunt’s home was a haven for dissenting ministers of all varieties The aunt, a strict Calvinist herself, was generous in her attitudes toward all. Priestley notes in his memoirs (p. 13), “those who were the most obnoxious on account of their heresy were almost as welcome to her, if she thought [they were] good an honest men as any others.” One can make a fair surmise that the Aunt’s tolerance had something to do with Priestley’s life-long advocacy of freedom of thought.

In a period of two years before going to the academy, he was taught by a dissenting minister and learned geometry, algebra, various branches of mathematics and philosophy, in addition to languages. So well-grounded was he that when he went to the academy he was excused from all first-year work and most of the second. He writes in his memoirs almost laconically that in the same pre-academy period, he taught Hebrew to a Baptist minister and at the same time learned Chaldee, Syriac, and began to read Arabic.

At the time he writes of seeking membership to the Dissenting congregation but the Elders who had the power to decide membership refused him. As Priestley writes, “because when they interrogated me on the subject of the sin of Adam, I appeared not to be quite orthodox, not thinking that all the human race were liable to the wrath of God and the pains of hell forever on account of that sin only....”

When leaving for academy he still thought himself a Trinitarian – a moderate Calvinist, but he left it an Arian. An Arian, briefly, believed that Jesus was not co-equal with God, but proceeded from him. This was an ancient heresy in orthodox Christianity.

Because of the impediment in Priestley’s speech, his prospects for ministry were not bright, so he accepted a low-paying post as an assistant minister at Needham Market in Suffolk. Of this handicap he wrote realistically, and with a bit of humor (p. 25), “Sometimes I absolutely stammered, and my anxiety about it was a cause of much distress to me. However, like St. Paul’s thorn in the flesh, I hope it has not been without its use. Without some check such as this, I might have been disputatious in company, or might have been seduced by the love of applause as a preacher; whereas my conversation and my delivery in the pulpit have nothing in them that was generally striking. I hope I have been attentive to qualifications of a superior kind.”

He worked hard in his ministry at Needham Market – he taught catechism to the young and lectured to adults as well as preaching. He found, as he continued his studies, that his convictions were changing. He abandoned belief in the atonement and the supernatural inspiration of the Bible. His congregation fell off and he removed to Nantwich in Cheshire (1758) where he had three good years in that ministry.

To augment his ministerial income he became a teacher at a liberal academy (Warrington). There was a stimulating, fine, intellectual atmosphere there which Priestley enjoyed. He taught (any teachers here?) languages, English grammar, and rhetoric, composition, oratory, logic, English, history, the English constitution and law, the principles of government, colonial administration, and economics.

During this period, he used to spend a month in London where he found stimulation in liberal intellectual circles meeting among others, Benjamin Franklin, who [was there] in the interests of the American colonies. Priestley and Franklin began a friendship that was life-long.

Priestley was married and had a growing family. Therefore when an influential congregation in Leeds invited him to become minister, he accepted, [and] he had six productive years. Theologically in Leeds his religious views changed. He became a Socinian – one who believed in the entire humanity, not deity, of Jesus. “Unitarian” was not then a commonly-used term, although it soon would be. At that time, “Liberal Dissenters” was more commonly used as a descriptive word.

It was in Leeds that Priestley began experiments in chemistry, which were to bring him his greatest renown. Although some think of him as the “father of modern chemistry,” he began knowing little about it and had to build his own apparatus and devise his experiments. By accident, he experimented on air, and his findings led the Royal Society to confer its highest honor, the Copley Medal. In 1774, he made his crowning discovery of oxygen, which he called “phlogiston.” Oddly enough, in spite of his achievements in the field then called “experimental philosophy” he seemingly didn’t attach too much importance to his achievements in science. In his memoirs he gives only a page or so to them.

Nevertheless, he was made a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, described as one of the most important groups in the history of science and technology. The Lunar Society was so-named because they met for dinner on the Monday nearest to the night of the full moon (so the moon would light them on the way home). The Lunar Society included William Small (who had returned from Virginia, where his ablest student at William & Mary was Thomas Jefferson), Dr. Erasmus Darwin (the physician whose grandson was Charles Darwin), James Watt (of steam engine fame), Josiah Wedgwood (the famous potter, and a Unitarian), and Benjamin Franklin. Franklin introduced Joseph Priestley to the Lunar Society. Priestley not only was interested in Franklin’s experiments with electricity but also Priestley was outspoken in his support of the American colonies. When Priestley wrote THE HISTORY AND PRESENT STATE OF ELECTRICITY in 1767, the book contained the first detailed account of Franklin’s famous kite and lightning experiment.

Then came an interval when Priestley was sponsored by the Earl of Shelbourne. For seven years he was librarian and literary companion to the Earl. He traveled Europe [and] met many men of science in France and Germany. In London he attended the first avowedly Unitarian congregation, Essex St. Chapel, where the pioneering Unitarian Theophilus Lindsay was minister. [CJW note: Benjamin Franklin regularly attended Essex St. Chapel in the period he was in London.]

But after seven years, Priestley was invited to serve the most liberal pulpit in England, in Birmingham. He was encouraged to pursue his scientific work. Although his 11 years in that city were to end in personal disaster, Priestley considered that period to be the happiest period of his life.

The congregation encouraged and supported him in his scientific experiments by hiring a colleague to do many of the parish duties. His ministry was on Sundays, preaching to the congregation, giving religious instruction to the young people and children. Weekdays were for his laboratory experiments and writing.

His most important theological work in this period was CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. Priestley’s thesis, based on his knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and study of ancient sources, was that the belief of earliest Christianity was Unitarian. This primitive Unitarian[ism] was corrupted, he argued, by the later intrusion of Greek philosophy and other influences resulting in orthodox dogmas.

In the established church, this book created much alarm because it was feared there would be a new crowd of converts to Unitarianism as happened with the Essex St. Chapel. There were spiteful attacks on Priestley’s scholarship. Priestley replied, defending his arguments – the articles and debates continued over an eight-year period.

Meanwhile political controversy was boiling around the Liberal Dissenters. Priestley was not only outspoken in his defense of the rights of the colonists in the American Revolution, but also of the goals of the French Revolution, much to the rage and fear of the establishment.

When the Liberal Dissenters had a banquet on July 14, 1791 to celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, the opposition decided to strike. The High Church planned to incite a mob to silence the Dissenters. The mob surrounded the hotel only to find that the celebration had already been held and the attendees departed.

The mob of nearly 2,000 was furious, and immediately proceeded to wreck the two Unitarian meeting houses in Birmingham. Then they started for Priestley’s home. Fortunately he had been warned and was able to escape with his family. But the mob ruined his house, destroyed his laboratory and equipment, scattered his papers, and then set it all on fire. Priestley, who had gone to his daughter’s house, was warned that his life was in danger, traveled to London. He never saw Birmingham again.

There were many expressions of concern and sympathy for Priestley. More than 20 religious, scientific, or political societies presented him with addresses of praise. The French Constituent Assembly conferred on him and his son the honor of French citizenship and invited him to be a member of the National Assembly.

Although he continued preaching and writing, there was no safety for Priestley in England. His three sons had already gone to America, and he decided to follow, sailing in April 1794, and after eight weeks at sea arrived in New York on June 4.

He had friends in America – Benjamin Franklin of course, but also Thomas Jefferson. They had corresponded on commerce and trade. In addition, Jefferson asked Priestley’s advice about what subjects should be taught in the College of William and Mary (Jefferson’s dream of the University of Virginia not yet formed or realized). They were kindred souls in their mutual clear convictions of the necessity for civil and religious liberties and the value of systematic studies.

Priestley settled in Northumberland, one of the loveliest areas of central Pennsylvania. He built a house and laboratory on the banks of the beautiful Susquehanna. The house still stands – a historical site of the State of Pennsylvania.

There he remained for the rest of his life, with occasional trips to Philadelphia. He conducted Sunday services in his own home or his son’s.

One notable occasion sparked the Unitarian movement in Pennsylvania. In the winter of his second year in America, he spent three months in Philadelphia. He gave 12 lectures on the “Evidences of Christianity” in the Universalist Church. [CJW note: audience – VP and members of Congress] He had met the minister, the pioneer Universalist preacher Elhanan Winchester, in London, where they had become friends.

This led to the gathering of a Unitarian congregation in Philadelphia in 1796 – the first specifically Unitarian church in America. This early cooperation, support, and sharing among Unitarians and Universalists was a prophecy, a symbol of Unitarian Universalist merger (which was to happen 164 years later).

At Northumberland he continued his studies and experiments. He studied Hindu religion, comparing its laws to the laws of Moses. He recomposed his notes on the New Testament which had been destroyed in the Birmingham riots.

Since 1801, his health had been declining, although he continued his work. On February 6, 1804, he died, in Northumberland. His wish to die and be buried in his native England was not to be fulfilled.

An abundance of appraisals of Priestley’s life and work could be written – by a scientist, theologian, political scientist, church historian – for Priestley was a man of astonishingly varied talents and a multitude of accomplishments.

But as a summary of his life, I am moved by a sentence written by his son, who said his father “always argued on the side of liberty.”