44 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



went to the Warrington Academy, where Dr Priestley taught'. Here 

 he came, for the first time pi'obably, into touch with this man of com- 

 manding scientific ability with whom he remained a close friend during 

 life. Priestley was the second name in 1785 of those' on Samuel 

 Galton's certificate for fellowship of the Royal Society. Nor was 

 the friendship one-sided. Whatever the mob may have thought of 

 Priestley, when they fired the Unitarian meeting-houses, burnt 

 Priestley's private house, wrecked his laboratory and destroyed his 

 manuscripts and books, for sympathising with the French revolutionists, 

 Galton and Wedgwood maintained their friendship for him. There is 

 a fine letter from Samuel Galton to Priestley still pi-eserved which runs 

 (Sept. 7, presumably 1791) : 



"I have this moment only received your favour by Mr Wm Priestley, and rejoice 

 most sincerely in the idea of seeing you. Jf you incline to come to Birmingham, which 

 I tliink much better and more honorable, pray inform me the hour you expect to 

 arrive and wiiere, for I will meet you at the Coach and accompany you in your 

 perambulations about the town, liappy in an occasion to avow the most explicit attach- 

 ment to a Person, whose friendship does me the greatest honour. If you leave tlie 

 coach at what was once j'our house, I will meet you tiiere. It shall never be said that 

 Dr Priestley was not received with open arms by one on whom he has conferred such 

 obligations. The idea of fear Mrs Galton' and myself equally despise, nor do we really 

 think there is any danger, but if the alternative were that we should lose our house or 

 our esteem for ourselves, we would not pause for a monienf." 



There is a good deal of the old Quaker spirit of the Barclays and 



' It should be noted that John Wedgwood and Malthus were both at Warrington 

 somewhat later 1782-3, and this College link of Wedgwood and Malthus to Priestley, 

 Darwin and Galton should be borne in mind. 



- Tiie names are Richard Kirwan (1733 — 1812), the " Nestor of English Chemistry," 

 and Copley medallist in 1782 for his ])apers on chemical afhnity, "an accomplished 

 linguist, a brilliant talker, and an adept in Italian music "; John .Smeaton (1724 — 1792), 

 the great engineer, builder of lighthouses and bridges and originator of the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers; Josiah Wedgwood (1730 — 1795), the keen business man, the 

 strenuous potter and the inborn artist; T. Lcine(1734 — 1807), the inventor of graduated 

 medical measures and of the discharging electrometer; and Sir W^illiam Watson, M.D. 

 (1744 — 1825), another distinguished medical man of the time. It would have been 

 difficult at that day to have a group of six supporters more weighty or more varied 

 in their talents. 



' Lucy Barclay : see Plate XXVIII. 



■* Marsh, G. F., Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 

 Vol. VII, p. G9. " On some correspondence of Dr Priestley, preserved in the Warrington 

 Museum." 



