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Joseph Priestley (1733–1804)
Priestley, Joseph. A celebrated English philosopher, theologian, physicist, and chemist; born at Birstall near Leeds, March 13, 1733; died near Philadelphia, Feb. 6, 1804. He was a Dissenting minister of Unitarian or Socinian principles, and served as such in various towns, the last being Hackney, a London suburb. Among his writings are: ‘Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion’ (1754); ‘History of Electricity’ (1767); ‘Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit,’ his most noteworthy philosophical treatise (1777); ‘History of the Corruptions of Christianity’ (1782); ‘Observations on Different Kinds of Air’ (3 vols., 1774–77); ‘The Doctrine of Phlogiston Established’ (1800).