The Priestley Riots took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets were religious dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley. Both local and national issues stirred the passions of the rioters, from disagreements over public library book purchases, to controversies over Dissenters' attempts to gain full civil rights and their support of the French Revolution.
The attack on Joseph Priestley's home, Fairhill, at Sparkbrook, Birmingham on 14 July 1791
Caricaturist James Sayers's "Repeal of the Test Act: A Vision" shows Priestley spewing the smoke of heresy from the pulpit.
"The Treacherous Rebel and Birmingham Rioter" (c.1791), with Joseph Priestley as the rebel being chased by Satan (at right)
Ticket for the dinner celebrating the second anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1791
Joseph Priestley was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted experiments in several areas of science.
Portrait of Priestley, 1801
Priestley's birthplace (since demolished) in Fieldhead, Birstall, West Yorkshire – about six miles (10 km) southwest of Leeds
Mary Priestley, by Carl F. von Breda (1793); daughter of ironmaster Isaac Wilkinson, sister of industrialist John Wilkinson
A redacted version of A New Chart of History (1765); Priestley believed this chart would "impress" upon students "a just image of the rise, progress, extent, duration, and contemporary state of all the considerable empires that have ever existed in the world"
