page_title: Joseph Priestley
section_title: Warrington Academy (1761–1767)
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Priestley / Warrington Academy (1761–1767)
caption_attribution_description: (wife of Joseph Priestley)
context_page_description: Joseph Priestley FRS was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist who published over 150 works. He has historically been credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier also have strong claims to the discovery, Scheele having discovered it in 1772, two years before Priestley.
  During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs", the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air". However, Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community.
  Priestley's science was integral to his theology, and he consistently tried to fuse Enlightenment rationalism with Christian theism. In his metaphysical texts, Priestley attempted to combine theism, materialism, and determinism, a project that has been called "audacious and original".
context_section_description: In 1761, Priestley moved to Warrington and assumed the post of tutor of modern languages and rhetoric at the town's Dissenting academy, although he would have preferred to teach mathematics and natural philosophy. He fitted in well at Warrington, and made friends quickly. These included John Aikin, his sister Anna Laetitia Aikin, and Josiah Wedgwood. Wedgwood met Priestley in 1762, after a fall from his horse. Wedgwood and Priestley met rarely, but exchanged letters, advice on chemistry, and laboratory equipment. Wedgwood eventually created a medallion of Priestley in cream-on-blue jasperware.
  On 23 June 1762, Priestley married Mary Wilkinson of Wrexham. Of his marriage, Priestley wrote:
  This proved a very suitable and happy connexion, my wife being a woman of an excellent understanding, much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous; feeling strongly for others, and little for herself. Also, greatly excelling in every thing relating to household affairs, she entirely relieved me of all concern of that kind, which allowed me to give all my time to the prosecution of my studies, and the other duties of my station.
  On 17 April 1763, they had a daughter, whom they named Sarah after Priestley's aunt.
caption: Mary Priestley, by Carl F. von Breda (1793);[22] daughter of ironmaster Isaac Wilkinson, sister of industrialist John Wilkinson
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