The 250th Anniversary of the discovery of Oxygen

 

Dr. Sliderule at Joseph Priestley's Laboratory at Bowood House,

the site of the isolation of the gas element Oxygen by Priestley

on August 1, 1774

On August 1, 2024, we will celebrate a momentous event in the history of science, the 250th Anniversary of the isolation of the element Oxygen.

Joseph Priestley was in the laboratory he had constructed at Bowood House in Wiltshire, England on August 1, 1774.  He was the librarian and tutor for the Earl of Shelburne. Priestley, a Unitarian Minister and polymath was already well known for his scientific and other scholarly work in many diverse disciplines.

 
However, Priestley’s most important and lasting contribution to science is based upon the discovery he made on this date at this location when he obtained a colorless gas by heating red mercuric oxide. He found that a candle would burn and that a mouse would thrive in this gas in a closed container.  He called it “dephlogisticated air,” based upon the belief that ordinary air became saturated with phlogiston once it could no longer support combustion and life.  The phlogiston theory was originally postulated by the German chemist, Georg Ernst Stahl (22 October 1659 – 24 May 1734), and has subsequently been discredited.

The following October, Priestley accompanied his patron, Lord Shelburne, on a tour through Belgium, Holland, Germany, and France, when in Paris Priestley informed the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier how he obtained the new “air.” This meeting between the two scientists was highly significant for the future of chemistry. Lavoisier immediately repeated Priestley’s experiments and, between 1775 and 1780, conducted intensive investigations from which he derived the elementary nature of oxygen, recognized it as the “active” principle in the atmosphere, interpreted its role in combustion and respiration, and gave it its name. Lavoisier’s pronouncements of the activity of oxygen revolutionized chemistry.

To see a video on this subject see this link.

Stuart's Portrait of Priestley at Bowood in North Wiltshire

While in North Wiltshire this last Summer we went to Bowood House. Bowood house is the country estate of the Marquis and Marquess of Lansdowne. It was at Bowood house in 1774 that Joseph Priestley isolated the substance that we now call Oxygen. While there is some controversy as to whom was the first to "discover" oxygen, Priestley has been recognized as a true giant during the British Enlightenment Period.

The portrait on the left here sits over the mantle in the room where Priestley actually performed the experiment.  The portrait was painted by Gilbert Stuart, the famous American painter.  It was after Priestley immigrated to the United States in 1794 that he actually sat for the Stuart portrait.

Gilbert Stuart, a famous American portrait painter painted portraits of many of the American Founding Fathers, including the famous portrait of George Washington that hangs in the White House. Please look at my earlier post on the Stuart portrait of Priestley at the National Gallery.

Priestley was employed by the Second Earl of Lansdowne to tutor his son and as his companion. It was in 1782 that the Earl was made Prime Minister of England and given the title of Marquis.  While Priestley was known for his radical activist views, including calling for the independence of the British colonies in America, it was ironic that it was the Marquis who signed the Peace Treaty with the fledgeling United States to end the war of Independence on behalf of the British.

Bowood is also know for another famous scientific discovery by Dr. Jan Ingen Housz, who in the 1790's discovered photosynthesis there. 

Joseph Priestley in Calne by Norman Beale

Hobnob Press (UK), 2008, 90pp.

ISBN	0946418810, 9780946418817

I finally read through this paperback book (it is a relatively short book that is a quick read) just before we went to Bowood House just outside of Calne in North Wiltshire.  The book was undertaken by Norman Beale, who is a local retired doctor who took a fancy to study the history of the famous Priestley in the years he was in service to the Marquis of Lansdowne who resided at Bowood House.

Mr. Beale has clearly not written a biography for the general public's consumption before. Perhaps this is why he has self published this work. While I discovered many interesting details about the life of this famous enlightenment hero that I had not known before, I found the style a little wanting.  I particularly was put off by his tendency to nit pick little points where his interpretation of some detail was ever so slightly different from what others had concluded, many times without any real basis for all the hubbub. I suppose he could have just stated his interpretation without going into the distinction to what was previously recorded by others.

While the book does concentrate on the years when he was in Calne, it does cover the time both before and after he was located there, but in a more abbreviated form.  I am glad that Mr. Beale has both taken the time to research and write the book, but, also, that he has clearly invested his own funds to assure that the book was made available to a wide audience. The final product was produced very professionally.

I, for one, would have thought that a more rigorous account of the "science" would have been presented, but I am grateful for what I got.  Most great science is a lot of very tedious and menial chores.  I can recall from reading Priestley's letters in the "Scientific Correspondence of Joseph Priestley" the letters that went on and on about the most insignificant and irrelevant matters, but that is how progress in science is made.

There is far too little written and known about this superstar of the enlightenment available to the public.  If you are ever planning on going to Bowood House, I strongly recommend that you read the book beforehand.  The staff at Bowood House seems to be oblivious to the Priestley connection in spite of the fact that there is a room there where he first "discovered" or better yet "isolated" oxygen (dephlogisticated air, as he called it).  The book is available at Bowood House, but it is a little too long to read while you are there, so do your homework.  It is available on Amazon. I bought my copy on eBay.

In spite of the ignorance of the staff at Bowood House I would still strongly recommend the visit there.  The portrait of Priestley by Gilbert Stuart is the best painting I have ever seen of Priestley (even though it is a reproduction). In walking down the hallway past the laboratory and over to the library, I could feel the hairs on my neck stand up just thinking about the fact that Joseph himself had walked these very steps almost 250 years before me. That experience is very close to the experience I had holding his Rushing Water bookplate.

Oh, if I could have been a fly on the wall when he was there.  Please don't expect to find his laboratory intact.  All the laboratory equipment was sold long long ago.