At Birmingham, in 1791, the last great religious riot in England occurred. It is often spoken of today as “Priestley’s Riots,” for the doctor was the chief object of the mobs.
It was during a celebration on the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, at which Dr. Priestley was not present, that the cry of the mob was “Church and King.” Dr. Priestley had favored the agitation, then rife in Birmingham, for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The mob suddenly marched toward his home and Dr. and Mrs. Priestley, who were playing a game of backgammon, barely succeeded in escaping. The doctor was pursued for several days and his life threatened.
The mob vented its rage by pillaging Priestley’s house and tearing it to pieces. The rioters made a pyre of his furniture, manuscripts, priceless apparatus, a library of 30,000 volumes, his private correspondence, and his diaries, and all were destroyed by fire.
In 1794 Dr. Priestley came to America and settled at Northumberland, Pa. Here he erected a fine house and laboratory, and resumed his experiments, which resulted in the discovery of three new gases. Here he wrote many books.
Dr. Priestley made trips to Philadelphia, where he lectured on historical and religious subjects, founding, in 1796, the first Unitarian Church in that city.
The University of Pennsylvania offered him the chair of chemistry, and afterward its presidency, but he preferred the quiet of his home at the “Forks of the Susquehanna.”
In 1874 the chemists of America met at Northumberland to celebrate at the grave of Dr. Priestley the centennial of his great discovery. Messages were flashed across the Atlantic to chemists who met the same day at Birmingham to unveil a colossal statue[statue] of the man whom that city had, eighty years before, driven from the streets, and burned his home and possessions.
Dr. Joseph Priestley was one of the most distinguished adopted citizens of our great State.
