Joseph Priestley
The famous scientist, Unitarian minister, philosopher and political theorist was born in a farmhouse at Fieldhead, Birstall on 13th March 1733, the son of Jonas Priestley and his first wife, Mary. Although the original house no longer exists the site is marked by a plaque.
As Joseph was one of six children, he was soon sent to live with an uncle at Shafton near Barnsley where he stayed for the first four years of his life. He returned to Fieldhead but after his mother’s death in 1739 was sent away again, this time to live with his aunt Sarah Keighley at Old Hall, Heckmondwike, where he stayed from 1742 to 1752. Whilst there he attended Batley Grammar School, but as he was brought up as a Calvinist, was not able to go to an established university as they disallowed dissenters. Instead he went to the dissenting academy in Daventry, from which he emerged able to take up posts as a non-conformist minister. His first post was at a chapel in Needham Market, Suffolk, but he was not popular there, probably because he had evolved his own thoughts about his religion and was not prepared to accept established ideas without question.
Next Priestley moved to an appointment in Nantwich, Cheshire where he was much better received. He opened a school here teaching science and languages. He himself was already proficient in French, Italian, German, Arabic, Syrian and Chaldean. The success of the school led to Priestley being offered a post as tutor at the new dissenting academy in Warrington. It was teaching science there that led him to research aspects of the subject and to publish his findings. He wrote “The History and Present State of Electricity” at this time, presenting new theories about electricity based on his experiments.
In 1767 Priestley at last returned to Yorkshire as Minister of Mill Hill Chapel in Leeds. He had married in 1762 and his first child was born the following year. It was in Leeds that he first began to experiment with gases, dissolving gas into water and thereby inventing carbonated water, a process soon after used commercially to produce soda water or “pop”, by companies such as Schweppes, not by Priestley himself. His experiments involved identifying the gases carbon dioxide and what was to become known as oxygen.
After this, Priestley came to the attention of William Petty, the 2nd Earl of Shelbourne who appointed him librarian and tutor at his country house, “Bowood” near Calne in Wiltshire, where he held post from 1773 to 1779. Shelbourne took him on a grand tour of Europe, during which Priestley met and shared ideas with Antoine Lavoisier. It was he who developed Priestley’s theories, calling the resultant new gas oxygen. Carl Scheele in Sweden had made similar discoveries around the same time, but did not publish his work until after Priestley and Lavoisier, but all three scientists have equal credit as the discoverer of oxygen. In his lab at “Bowood House”, Priestley identified several other new gases including nitric oxide and ammonia.
When his post there came to an end, Priestley moved to Fair Hill, Birmingham as minister of the New Meeting House, continuing his experiments with gases, publishing the six volume work “Experiments and observations on different types of air” in 1786 and enjoying meetings of the Lunar Society with his fellow intellectuals and industrialists. But he became more and more outspoken about political matters, supporting those fighting for American Independence and in the French Revolution. This branded him as anti-establishment, a revolutionary and he and his family were lucky to escape with their lives when a reactionary mob attacked his home and chapel at Fair Hill, razing them to the ground. This event, in 1791 became known as “The Priestley Riots”.
The family escaped to Hackney, north London, where Priestley acted as minister to the chapel known as the “Gravel Pit” in Ram Place. Alarmed by events at Birmingham and the loss of all his scientific equipment and most of his books it was not long before he decided to leave for the United States as a safer haven for his family and his work. Helped by Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Priestley found land on which to build a house and laboratory in
Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. Here he identified carbon monoxide, and here he died in 1804.
The house is now preserved as a museum and is marked as a
“Historic Chemical Landmark” by a plaque placed there by the American Chemical Society.
Priestley's statue in the market place at Birstall was designed by the sculptress Frances
Darlington. It was unveiled at a ceremony on 12th October 1912 by Sir Edward Thorpe, himself a scientist and admirer and biographer of Sir Joseph Priestley.
To mark the centenary of the statue's unveiling, a sandstone road sign was erected in 2012 on the
approach road to the town proclaiming Birstall as the birthplace of Joseph Priestley. The stone, a joint venture by the Rotary Club of Birstall Luddites and the Priestley Society, was funded by the Batley, Birstall and Birkenshaw Area Committee and was surrounded by cobbles lifted from the market place when it was regenerated 3 years previously.
Ghost sign
This old advertisement on the wall of a building on Gelderd Road between Birstall and Gildersome recalls the Luther Rhodes flock manufacturing company which once operated nearby. Luther Rhodes was related to John William Rhodes, chairman and governing director of the Leeds bedding manufacturer William Rhodes Ltd and attended his funeral in November 1938. But Luther had set up his own flock manufacturing concern, the Reliance Works, near Birstall. The history of the company is plagued by fires, being concerned with such a
flammable material. In March 1930 the Batley fire brigade were called out to the business which was then conducted in three army huts and was afire. It was so cold, however, and the winds so strong that the water froze where the firemen stood, forming icicles on their uniforms. The fire had started in the middle hut, used for rag grinding and flock curling, in the night and staff tried to quell it with buckets of water. By the time the fire brigade arrived flames had engulfed two of the huts which were reduced to charred ruins.
Then at about 1pm on Saturday 11th March 1939 another fire raged through the company's warehouse at Field Head Lane, Birstall, causing extensive damage. Luckily the workforce had left the building for the day shortly beforehand. Cotton and wadding and garneting machines inside the brick building were destroyed, but Batley fire brigade managed to save three houses under threat at one end of the warehouse. The brigade stayed at the scene for five hours to ensure the fire was completely eradicated.
Then in December 1953 a further fire took hold in the rag grinding department at the Gelderd Road works, bringing both Batley and Cleckheaton fire brigades to the rescue.