"Our engraving of the renowned Dr. Priestley is after a marble statue by the English sculptor, J.F. Williamson, erected at Birmingham in 1874.

Dr. Joseph Priestley, who was a famous scientist and theologian, was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1773 and died in Northumberland, Pennsylvania in 1804.  In 1767 he published a 'History of Electricity' at the suggestion of Dr. Benjamin Franklin.  ...Dr. Priestly went to Leeds, where he began his investigations on airs and published a history of the discoveries in relation to vision, light and colours, as the first part of a general history of experimental philosophy.  Here he likewise commenced the publication of a periodical devoted to theological subjects. Among numerous other things he wrote an 'Essay on Government', and enlarged 'English Grammar', a 'Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity', a 'Treatise on Perspective and Chart of History', and an 'Address to Dissenters on the Subject of Difference with America'.  Dr. Priestley discovered the effect of respiration on the blood, and the tendency of vegetation to restore to vitiated air its vivifying principle.  He also discovered nitrous gas, muriatic gas and oxygen, which he obtained from red precipitate of mercury, calling it 'dephlogisticated air'.  In 1780 Dr. Priestley settled in Birmingham, where he incurred much odium for his liberal religious opinions, and in 1791 his house was destroyed by a mob and he and his family were forced soon after to flee to America."  (Art Journal 1877)