This extraordinary 18th-century Briton found success in nearly every field he pursued. His profound understanding of the natural sciences and theology helped shape a new generation of scientists, politicians, and public figures, not only in Great Britain but beyond. As a theologian, a dissenting minister, a natural philosopher, an educator, and a political theorist, he published over 150 works on a wide range of subjects. Find out more at birmingham1.one.
Despite his international recognition, Joseph Priestley constantly sought opportunities to earn more, which led him to move frequently from one city to another. From 1780 to 1791, he lived in Birmingham, where he had friends, followers, and a significant influence on the ideology of the influential group known as the “Lunar Society.”
Early Talent and a Youthful Existential Crisis
Joseph Priestley was born in 1733 in the picturesque town of Birstall in West Yorkshire. His parents, Mary Swift and Jonas Priestley, were Calvinist Dissenters, a faith that opposed the tenets of the Anglican Church. Joseph was the eldest of six children. His father worked in a textile mill, and the family’s income was just enough to cover the necessities. Overwhelmed with managing all the children, his mother sent Joseph to be raised by his grandfather. In 1739, his mother passed away, and a year later, his father remarried. Young Joseph was then taken in by his aunt and uncle, who were childless and financially able to care for him.
From an early age, Joseph demonstrated exceptional intellectual abilities. He could recite passages from the Westminster Shorter Catechism from memory. This means that before he could even read or write, Joseph Priestley showed a curiosity for complex questions such as: “What is the chief end of man?”, “What do the Scriptures principally teach?”, and “What is the doctrine of predestination?” His aunt Sarah naturally believed he was destined to become a minister and ensured he attended schools where he could study ancient languages to read the sacred texts in their original forms. To this day in Europe and Great Britain, a person is considered truly educated if they are familiar with the fundamentals of Hebrew, Latin, and Ancient Greek.
In 1749, Joseph Priestley fell gravely ill and was unsure if he would survive. Such moments often trigger an existential crisis. The high fever and pain led Joseph to ponder whether he had ever had a true conversion experience—a feeling that God had entered his life. At that time, Calvinist beliefs required a “baptism of the Holy Spirit,” a personal event between an individual and God that provided assurance of one’s “predestined salvation.” The young man’s views on faith shifted, and he began to believe that God could save anyone, even people of other denominations and faiths. Unfortunately, these progressive ideas were not well-received by the community elders, and he was excommunicated.
Education at the Academy and the Search for Truth
Joseph Priestley moved to another town to live with a relative who was a merchant and focused on studying secular subjects, especially modern languages, mathematics, and logic. He also began reading the works of John Locke, the founder of empiricism and liberal political philosophy, and other humanists. In 1752, he enrolled in Daventry Academy, one of the “Dissenting academies” established for “Protestant Dissenters.” This group included anyone who had separated from the Church of England: Puritans, Presbyterians, Calvinists, Anabaptists, and Quakers. Members of these religious communities were barred from attending key universities like Oxford and Cambridge and from holding public or military office. At the academy, Priestley became one of the top students and, upon graduation, one of the most educated individuals of his time. The curriculum was humanities-based, requiring mastery of religious and philosophical disciplines as well as ancient Eastern languages like Arabic, Syriac, and Chaldean.
While free-thinking helped Joseph Priestley unlock his talents, his views often clashed with the doctrines of nearly every religious community in Great Britain. However, fellow “Dissenters” respected his opinions, even if they didn’t always agree. He was convinced that church tradition and dogma obscured religious truth and hindered scientific inquiry. He disagreed with the view that Scripture was divinely inspired, argued that Christ did not exist before his birth on Earth, believed the Church Fathers had misinterpreted biblical truths by introducing the concept of the Trinity, and did not even believe in the immortality of the soul. As a proponent of the free exchange of ideas, Priestley championed religious tolerance and equal rights for religious Dissenters.
In his search for truth, Joseph Priestley logically and consistently tried to synthesize Enlightenment rationalism—the idea to “dare to use your own reason”—with Christian theism, the belief in God’s active presence in the world. In his metaphysical works, he curiously blended deism (God as the “Clockmaker” who created the world and then stepped back), pantheism (God is present everywhere in nature), materialism (matter is primary, while mind and consciousness are secondary), and determinism (predestination that denies free will). His writings were “revolutionary,” earning Priestley the respect of the great thinkers of his time.
Theology, Political Philosophy, Education, and Scientific Discovery
Priestley later became a champion of Unitarianism in Great Britain, which holds that God is a single spirit, not a three-person entity; that Jesus was not the Son of God but an anointed prophet; and that the Bible is divinely inspired but written by humans, making it subject to critical analysis.
After studying the political philosophy of John Locke, Joseph became deeply concerned with issues of liberty, justice, law, and the pursuit of the public good. He consistently raised philosophical questions in his sermons and offered theological answers. It was important to him that people would leave the service and discuss these philosophical-theological topics in the town square, as he hoped to engage ordinary citizens in political life. Unfortunately, this approach caused his congregation to shrink, and with it, the donations that made up part of his income.
Good friends from his academy days suggested he change careers and start teaching natural philosophy—subjects like natural history, biology, and astronomy. He adored his students and would often buy scientific instruments with his own money to convey information perfectly. On one occasion, shocked by the poor quality of grammar textbooks, he wrote his own, which separated the study of Latin from English. After its publication, Priestley gained fame as an educator and, in the 20th century, was recognized as “one of the great grammarians of his time.” In 1761, he was offered a teaching position at Warrington Academy, where he began writing scholarly works, including historical ones. He didn’t just teach rules; he told the story of how science developed over millennia, thereby creating the field of historiography. He was awarded a doctorate in 1764. A colleague at the academy suggested he write a history of electricity. Joseph was introduced to leading British scientists who encouraged him to conduct his own experiments. His descriptions and conclusions from these experiments would later influence the discoveries of Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and others. For his work on the history of electricity, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1767, Priestley moved to Leeds, where he returned to pastoral work and theological debates, writing a three-volume work on religion and education. In parallel, he continued his scientific experiments as a hobby. As a result, he discovered ammonia, hydrogen chloride, and nitrous oxide (“laughing gas”). He also saturated water with carbon dioxide, thus inventing carbonated water. In 1774, he isolated a gas in which a smoldering candle wick burned with extraordinary brightness. He filled a glass jar with it and placed a mouse inside, which lived twice as long as it would have in ordinary air. He called it “dephlogisticated air,” believing that a substance called “phlogiston” hindered combustion. In this way, oxygen was discovered, and later, this work led to the discovery of photosynthesis.
The Lunar Society, the Loss of His Home, and the Move to America
In 1780, Joseph Priestley moved to Birmingham, where he served as a parish minister while continuing his educational and scientific work. In the city, there was an informal learned society called the “Lunar Society,” composed of industrialists, natural philosophers, and local intellectuals. They called themselves this because their meetings were held monthly, on the Monday nearest the full moon, whose light would illuminate their way home. They also humorously referred to themselves as “lunaticks.”
Researchers believe that the Birmingham society was a driving force behind the Industrial Revolution, which introduced industrialization, the shift from manual labor to machine work, and the establishment of capitalism as the dominant economic system. Its prominent members included James Watt, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, and other distinguished scientists, engineers, and inventors.
In Birmingham, Priestley wrote new theological treatises arguing that the Reformation had not gone far enough in reforming the church. These works had a significant influence on Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. In 1785, Joseph Priestley wrote a pamphlet in which he called for revolution: “…let us not be discouraged, though, for the present, we should see no great number of churches avowedly unitarian… we are, as it were, laying gunpowder, grain by grain, under the old building of error and superstition, which a single spark may hereafter inflame, so as to produce an instantaneous explosion…” After its publication, the author began to be compared to Guy Fawkes and his “Gunpowder Plot,” earning Joseph Priestley the nickname “Gunpowder Joe.” When the French Revolution began in 1789, Priestley was viewed with suspicion. Residents of Great Britain feared that the bloody revolutionary events would spread to their own shores and grew hostile toward “Protestant Dissenters,” who were also supporters of the American and French Revolutions. In 1791, Dissenters in central Birmingham gathered for a dinner commemorating the storming of the Bastille. As they were leaving, an angry mob set fire to the church where Priestley preached and then to his home. Influential residents of Birmingham began filing lawsuits, accusing Priestley of subverting the state.
In 1794, he moved to the United States and settled in Pennsylvania, where his ideas were welcomed by liberals. In the “New World,” Priestley befriended Thomas Jefferson, with whom he developed the idea for creating an “ideal university,” a vision that was realized in the founding of the University of Virginia.
In time, the residents of Birmingham honored the “rebel” by erecting a monument to him. Joseph Priestley was a monumental figure in the history of science and society. His diverse activities significantly influenced the development of physics, chemistry, education, and civil rights. A true humanist, he sought to improve human life in all its aspects, and his creative works continue to inspire people worldwide.