Joseph Priestley (Dictionary of World Biography: The 17th and 18th Centuries)
Early Life
Joseph Priestley was born on March 13, 1733, in Birstal Fieldhead, near Leeds, in Yorkshire. His father, Jonas Priestley, was a weaver and cloth dresser, while his mother, née Mary Swift, was the only daughter of a Yorkshire farmer. The eldest of six children, young Joseph, after the death of his mother in 1739, was adopted by Sarah Keighley, his father’s sister. Reared in a Dissenting atmosphere, Priestley was brought into contact with a variety of religious and philosophical ideas that challenged conventional norms. Perhaps because of recurring illnesses during...
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