This year marks the anniversary of the Birmingham riots in which inventor and philosopher Joseph Priestley's house was burnt down by a 'Church and King' mob.
Priestley (1733–1804) was a member of the Lunar Society, which starred some of the most eminent thinkers and men of science of its day. The Society was based in Birmingham, home of industrial pioneers Boulton and Watt and the famous Soho foundry. You can find out more about the story of the Lunar Society members and their pivotal role in the history of freedom of thought in the July issue of Jane Austen's Regency World.
Images: Dr Joseph Priestley. Burning of Dr Priestley’s House at Fair Hill on 14 July 1791. Samuel Smiles’s Lives of the Engineers: Boulton & Watt, (John Murray, 1874).
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