Joseph Priestley (13 March 1733 (old style) – 8 February 1804) was a British natural philosopher, political theorist, clergyman, theologian, and educator. He was one of the most influential Dissenters of the late 18th-century.

A member of marginalized religious groups throughout his life and a proponent of what was called "rational Dissent", Priestley advocated religious toleration (challenging even William Blackstone), helped Theophilus Lindsey found the Unitarian church and promoted the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in the 1780s. As the foremost British expounder of providentialism, he argued for extensive civil rights, believing that individuals could bring about progress and eventually the Millennium.Tapper, 314. Priestley's religious beliefs were integral to his metaphysics as well as his politics and he was the first philosopher to "attempt to combine theism, materialism, and determinism," a project that has been called "audacious and original."

Defender of Dissenters and political philosopher Priestley claimed throughout his life that politics did not interest him and that he did not participate in it. What appeared to others as political arguments were for Priestley always, at their root, religious arguments. Many of what we would call Priestley's political writings were aimed at supporting the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, a political issue that had its foundation in religion.Schofield.

Between 1660 and 1665, Parliament passed a series of laws that restricted the rights of dissenters: they could not hold political office, teach school, serve in the military or attend Oxford and Cambridge unless they ascribed to the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. In 1689, a Toleration Act was passed that restored some of these rights, if dissenters subscribed to 36 of the 39 articles (Catholics and Unitarians were excluded), but not all Dissenters were willing to accept this compromise and many refused to conform. Throughout the 18th century Dissenters were persecuted and the laws against them were erratically enforced. Dissenters continually petitioned Parliament to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, claiming that the laws made them second-class citizens. The situation worsened in 1753 after the passage of Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act which stipulated that all marriages must be performed by Anglican ministers; some refused to perform Dissenting weddings at all.Schofield, Vol. 1, 202–5

Priestley's friends urged him to publish a work on the injustices borne by Dissenters, a topic to which he had already alluded in his Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life (1765).Priestley, Joseph. An essay on a course of liberal education for civil and active life. London: Printed for C. Henderson under the Royal Exchange; T. Becket and De Hondt in the Strand; and by J. Johnson and Davenport, in Pater-Noster-Row, 1765. The result was Priestley's Essay on the First Principles of Government,Priestley, Joseph. An essay on the first principles of government; and on the nature of political, civil, and religious liberty. Need publication information for first edition. which Priestley's major modern biographer calls his "most systematic political work," in 1768.Schofield, Vol. 1, 206. The book went through three English editions and was translated into Dutch. Jeremy Bentham credited it with inspiring his "greatest happiness principle."For an analysis of Bentham's statements on this issue, see Schofield, Vol. 1, 207–8. The Essay on Government is not strictly utilitarian, however; like all of Priestley's works, it is infused with the belief that society is progressing towards perfection. Although much of the text rearticulates John Locke's arguments from his Two Treatises on Government (1689), it also makes a useful distinction between political and civil rights and argues for protection of extensive civil rights.Garrett, 17; Tapper, 315. He distinguishes between a private and a public sphere of governmental control; education and religion, in particular, he maintains, are matters of private conscience and should not be administered by the state. As Kramnick states, "Priestley's fundamental maxim of politics was the need to limit state interference on individual liberty."Kramnick, 18. For early liberals like Priestley and Jefferson, the "defining feature of liberal politics" was its emphasis on the separation of church and state.Schofield, Vol. 1, 209–10; Jackson, 100–1; Uglow, 169; Kramnick, 20. In a statement that articulates key elements of early liberalism and anticipates utilitarian arguments, Priestley wrote: It must necessarily be understood, therefore, that all people live in society for their mutual advantage; so that the good and happiness of the members, that is the majority of the members of any state, is the great standard by which every thing relating to that state must finally be determined.Qtd. in Gibbs, 40 and Uglow, 169; Tapper, 315. Priestley acknowledged that revolution was necessary at times but believed that Britain had already had its only necessary revolution in 1688, although his later writings would suggest otherwise. Priestley's later radicalism emerged from his belief that the British government was infringing upon individual freedom.Tapper, 315. Priestley would repeatedly return to these themes throughout his career, particularly when defending the rights of Dissenters.Gibbs, 39–43.

Critic of William Blackstone's Commentaries In another attempt to champion the rights of Dissenters, Priestley defended their constitutional rights against the attacks of William Blackstone, an eminent legal theorist. Blackstone's Commentaries, fast becoming the standard reference for legal interpretation, stated that dissent from the Church of England was a crime and argued that Dissenters could not be loyal subjects. Furious, Priestley lashed out with his Remarks on Dr. Blackstone's Commentaries (1769), correcting Blackstone's grammar, his history and his interpretation of the law.Priestley, Joseph. Remarks on some paragraphs in the fourth volume of Dr. Blackstone’s Commentaries on the laws of England, relating to the Dissenters. London: Printed for J. Johnson and J. Payne, 1769. Blackstone, chastened, replied in a pamphlet and altered his Commentaries in subsequent editions; he rephrased the offending passages but still described Dissent as a crime.Schofield, Vol. 1, 214–16; Gibbs, 43.

Founder of Unitarianism

When Parliament rejected the Feather's Tavern petition in 1772, which would have released Dissenters from subscribing to the thirty-nine articles, many Dissenting ministers, as William Paley wrote, "could not afford to keep a conscience."Qtd. in Schofield, Vol. 2, 26. Priestley's friend from Leeds, Theophilus Lindsey, decided to try. He gave up his church, sold his books so that he would have money to live on and established the first Unitarian chapel in London. The radical publisher Joseph Johnson helped him find a building, which became known as Essex Street Chapel.chapter 2 The History of Essex Hall by Mortimer Rowe B.A., D.D. Lindsey Press, 1959. Priestley's patron at the time, Lord Shelburne, promised that he would keep the church out of legal difficulties (barrister John Lee, later Attorney-General, also helped), and Priestley and many others hurried to raise money for Lindsey.

On 17 April 1774, the chapel had its first service. Lindsey had designed his own liturgy, of which many were critical. Priestley rushed to his defense with Letter to a Layman, on the Subject of the Rev. Mr. Lindsey's Proposal for a Reformed English Church (1774),Need publication information. claiming that only the form of worship had been altered and attacking those who only followed religion as a fashion. Priestley attended the church regularly while living in Calne with Shelburne and even occasionally preached there.Schofield, Vol. 2, 26–8; Jackson, 124; Gibbs, 88–89. He continued to support institutionalized Unitarianism after he moved to Birmingham in 1780, encouraging the foundation of new Unitarian chapels throughout Britain and the United States.Schofield, Vol. 2, 225; 236–8. He wrote numerous letters in defence of Unitarianism, in particular against certain ministers and scholars such as Samuel Horsley, Alexander Geddes, George Horne and Thomas Howes. These letters were compiled and published (by the author) in an "annual reply" covering the years 1786-1789.Priestley, J. (1788) Defences of Unitarianism for the Year 1786-1789. He also compiled and edited a liturgy and hymnbook for the new denomination.Schofield, Vol. 2, 200–1.

Religious activist

In 1787, 1789 and 1790, Dissenters again tried to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts. Although initially it looked as if they might succeed, by 1790, with the fears of the French Revolution looming in the minds of many members of Parliament, few were swayed by Charles James Fox's arguments for equal rights. Political cartoons, one of the most effective and popular media of the time, skewered the Dissenters and Priestley specifically.Gibbs, 176–83. In the midst of these trying times, it was the betrayal of William Pitt and Edmund Burke that most angered Priestley and his friends; they had expected the two men's support and instead both argued vociferously against the repeal. Priestley wrote a series of Letters to William PittPriestley, Joseph. A letter to the Right Honourable William Pitt, ... on the subjects of toleration and church establishments; occasioned by his speech against the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, on Wednesday the 28th of March, 1787. Need publication information for first edition and other letters. and Letters to BurkePriestley, Joseph. Letters to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, occasioned by his Reflections on the Revolution in France, &c. Need publication information for first edition. in an attempt to persuade them otherwise, but to no avail. These publications unfortunately also inflamed the populace against him.

In its propaganda against the "radicals," Pitt's administration argued that Priestley and other Dissenters wanted to overthrow the government. Dissenters who had supported the French revolution came under increasing suspicion as skepticism over the revolution's benefits and ideals grew.Schofield, Vol. 2, 269–81; Thorpe, 122–125; Uglow, 409; 435–38. When in 1790 Richard Price, the other leading Dissenting minister in Britain at the time, gave a rousing sermon supporting the French revolutionaries and comparing them to English revolutionaries of 1688, Burke responded with his famous Reflections on the Revolution in France.Need publication information for first edition of Burke's text. Priestley rushed to the defense of his friend and of the revolutionaries, publishing one of the many responses, along with Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft, that became part of the "Revolution Controversy." Paradoxically, it is Burke, the secular statesman, who argued against science and maintained that religion should be the basis of civil society while Priestley, the Dissenting minister, argued that religion could not provide the basis for society and should be restricted to one's private life.Kramnick, 22.

Political adviser to Lord Shelburne