His poverty, energy, and extreme industry raised him from the humblest condition. His first place of Christian ministry for three years was at a small chapel at Needham, and his stipend only £30 a year, to which he added a small school. Here he bought a pair of globes (made by John Senex, F.R.S.). When he removed to Nantwich, where he was minister for three years, he took the globes with him, and also kept a small school. There he bought a small air-pump and an electrical machine and a few books, going on with preaching, teaching schools, and learning himself. He says: “I was barely able, with the greatest economy, to keep out of debt—but this I always made a point of.” (The globes and the first electrical machine belong to friends of mine.—M. R.)
In 1761 he removed to Warrington, where he remained six years, connected with the Academy there. Here he married his wife—a most admirable woman—who excelled so greatly in ruling the home that “it allowed him to give his whole time to the prosecution of his studies and other duties.” Her behaviour during the Persecution and Emigration to America was above all praise. She said of herself: “There is something inherent in me which always makes me swim to the top of affliction, so that I am ready to pop out to the first friendly hand that offers assistance—otherwise I am surprised at myself that I have borne it so well, and greatly rejoiced that Dr. Priestley has kept up under all the malignity that attended the riots. Our property may be said to be entirely destroyed, the few remains that have been picked up so demolished as to be of little value.” The loss of books, MSS., and instruments was valued at £10,000.
There is an interesting chapter on visiting Priestley’s grave in Harriet Martineau’s “Retrospect of Western Travel,” vol. i. pp. 175-90. Also a poetical account of the uses of oxygen by George Dawson of Birmingham, which I cut out for you. The list of all Priestley’s works and portraits, medallions and engravings, as well as remains of other kinds, is given by Rev. James Yates, and appended to the Life of Priestley by Hutt.
Priestley was driven from England in 1794, and Lavoisier was guillotined in the same year at Paris after confiscation of all his property; and it was in 1874 that Birmingham was “made to eat humble-pie” by erecting a statue to Priestley’s memory on the centenary of his great discovery.
I hope you have made a good beginning at Leeds and will nevertheless not be too busy to read this note and to excuse my troubling you.
Very truly yours,
Maria Roscoe.
Of the stimulating influence of these Penny Lectures Roscoe received abundant testimony: in after-life he frequently met persons, some occupying a high and responsible position in commerce and industry, who informed him that they were indebted to them for their first interest in science. One such person was the late Mr. Thomas Parker, a self-made man, and founder of the well-known electrical firm of Elwell-Parker.
Services such as these, combined with Roscoe’s growing popularity and influence, necessarily reacted favourably upon the fortunes of the College, and it steadily grew in favour. The chemical department especially increased in numbers, and the laboratory soon became inadequate to accommodate the students, who came to it from all parts of England, attracted by its fame as a chemical school.