Priestley Riots
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The Priestley Riots took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England; the rioters' main targets were religious dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically co
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
Lunar Society of Birmingham
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The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectu
Priestley Riots
…burned not only the homes and chapels of Dissenters, but also the homes of people they associated with Dissenters, such as members of the scientific Lunar Society. A more recent review of the riots, suggests that Josiah Wedgwood's Etruria Hall was threatened, not for of Wedgwood’s association with the Lunar…
Soho House in Handsworth, Birmingham, a regular venue for meetings of the Lunar Society
Matthew Boulton
Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Ducreux, 1777
Erasmus Darwin by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1770 (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery)