Joseph Hubert PriestleyDSO FLS (néPriestlay; 5 October 1883 – 31 October 1944) was a British lecturer in botany at University College, Bristol, and professor of botany and pro-vice-chancellor at the University of Leeds. He has been described as a gifted teacher who attracted many graduate research students to Leeds. He was the eldest child of a Tewkesbury head teacher and the elder brother of Raymond Priestley, the British geologist and Antarctic explorer. He was educated at his father's school and University College, Bristol. In 1904, he was appointed a lecturer in botany at the University College and published research on photosynthesis and the effect of electricity on plants. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society, and in 1910, he was appointed consulting botanist to the Bath and West and Southern Counties Society.
In 1922, he was appointed dean of the faculty of science, and in 1925, he was elected president of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union. In the following year, he taught a postgraduate course at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an active member of the British Association, the British Bryological Society, and the Forestry Commission. In 1935, he was elected pro-vice-chancellor, serving in that role until 1939. He was the first warden to the male students at Leeds and organised many social activities, including a staff dancing class and "botanical parties". He was a passionate cricket player and captained the staff team at Leeds. He died after a long illness at his home in Weetwood, Leeds.
Early life
Priestley was born on (1883-10-05)5 October 1883 at Abbey House school, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire,[2][3] and baptised at the Methodist chapel in Tewkesbury on 6November 1883.[4][a] He was the eldest child of eight children of Joseph Edward Priestlay, then head teacher of the school, and Henrietta, née Rice.[6]: 7 His mother was the second surviving daughter of Richard Rice of Tewkesbury. They had met at the Methodist chapel, and had married on 22December 1881 at Tettenhall parish church, now in the city of Wolverhampton.[7] The Priestley family name was spelt originally as "Priestlay". However, in the early 1900s, the name changes to "Priestley" and both spellings appear on family graves in Tewkesbury Cemetery.[6]: 10
In 1875, Priestley's father graduated from the University of London with a second classBachelor of Arts degree in animal physiology.[8] He was appointed head teacher of Abbey House school following the death of his father, Joseph Priestley,[6]: 7 on 13November 1876,[9] and remained as head until his retirement in 1917. He moved to Bristol and joined the staff of Grace, Darbyshire, and Todd,[10] a local firm of accountants.[11] He died on 9December 1921, aged 67, at a nursing home in Clifton, and was interred in Canford Cemetery, Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol.[10] Henrietta died on 24 September 1929, aged 76, at Bishopston, Bristol.[12]
Priestley's sisters were Edith, Doris, Joyce, and Olive.[15] Edith married Charles Seymour "Silas" Wright and Doris married Thomas Griffith "Grif" Taylor, both of whom were members of Scott's expedition.[6]: 10 Doris first met Taylor in July 1913, and at that time, was acting as Priestley's secretary.[16] Joyce married Herbert William Merrell, who served with the Gloucester Regiment in World War I,[17] and in later life, was an accountant on the staff of the University of Leeds.[18]
The family were Methodists, and on Sundays, Priestley was required to attend two religious services and Sunday school.[6]: 8 They were also passionate cricket players. Stanley was regarded as a good bowler and Donald played for Gloucestershire from 1909 to 1910.[6]: 9–10 Priestley himself would later play for the University College, Bristol,[19] and captain the staff team at the University of Leeds.[6]: 10
Education
Priestley, along with his brothers, was educated at his father's school in Tewkesbury.[6]: 8 [b] He passed his Cambridge Local Examination in December 1897 with unremarkable third class honours.[21] In July 1898, he passed an elementary examination in Pitman shorthand,[22] before taking a physical geography course at the Science Hall on Oldbury Road, Tewkesbury.[23] He passed this course with first class honours in June 1899.[24] In February 1900, he gained a first class pass in the University of London matriculation examination.[25] In July 1901, the University College, Bristol, awarded him a Capper Passmetallurgical scholarship of twenty-five pounds (equivalent to two thousand six hundred and twenty pounds in 2019).[26]
Though primarily a botany student, Priestley took courses in chemistry and physics at Bristol,[27] and in August 1901, he gained a first class pass in the University of London intermediate science examination.[28][c] In November 1902, the college awarded him a John Stewart Scholarship,[29][d] and in the following month, he was elected to the committee of the college's chemical society.[31] In November 1903, Priestley passed his final BSc examination with first class honours in botany.[32] In the same month, he was awarded a probationary bursary worth seventy pounds, by the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851,[33] to study the cell biology of rust fungi.[34]
In November 1904, Priestley was made an associate of the college.[35] In January 1905, he was appointed temporary lecturer in botany, in succession to George Brebner,[36] who had died on 23 December 1904.[37] This appointment was made permanent by the college council on 19July 1905 at an annual salary of £120 (equivalent to £16,300 in 2023).[5]: 521 [38] He and Raymond, who was then studying geography at the college, lodged together for two years on the top floor of a Bristol boarding house. They lived on fifty shillings a week and lunch would often consist of a bun and a glass of milk.[5]: 522
Priestley's early research examined the process and products of photosynthesis.[39] In 1906, he published a paper with Francis Usher, later a reader in colloid chemistry at the University of Leeds,[40] that postulated that chlorophyllin vitro is reduced to formaldehyde in the presence of carbon dioxide and light.[41]: 53 Vernon Herbert Blackman, professor of botany at the University of Leeds whom Priestley would succeed in 1911,[41]: 51 considered the evidence unsatisfactory.[41]: 53 Charles Horne Warner, working in Blackman's laboratory, found that the formation of formaldehyde was independent of the presence of carbon dioxide, and in fact, formaldehyde was formed as a by-product of the oxidation of chlorophyll.[41]: 54
In 1908, the college received a grant of fifty pounds from the Board of Agriculture to enable the biology department to conduct research on the effect of electricity on plants.[42] In an initial experiment, Priestley ran electrical wires above plants in greenhouses at Bitton, South Gloucestershire, to demonstrate that electricity could stimulate the growth of the plants.[43] At the time, it was thought that an electric current could increase plant respiration, transpiration, and starch formation.[44] He noted that young wheat leaves from electrified plots were, "in the opinion of many observers, darker green than the control plants."[45]: 180 He suggested that the darker green could result from a continuous amount of nitrates being added to the soil, in a similar manner to the oxidation of atmospheric nitrogen by lightning. In one soil test, he found three times the amount of nitrogen in the soil than in the control plots.[45]: 181 However, it is now generally accepted that there are no beneficial effects from exposing plants to electric fields.[45]: 178
In 1922, Priestley was appointed dean of the faculty of science,[68] and later, became the first warden to the male students at Leeds.[69] On 1July 1935, he succeeded Paul Barbier, professor of French,[70] as pro-vice-chancellor of the university.[71] Matthew John Stewart, professor of paleontology, succeeded him in June 1939.[72] In 1941, the senate appointed Priestley as pro-vice-chancellor for a second term, after Bernard Mouat Jones, then vice-chancellor, had left the University in February to complete National Service. Mouat Jones returned to the University in October and Priestley was succeeded as pro-vice-chancellor by John David Ivor Hughes, professor of law at the university.[73]: 111
Personal life
Priestley married Marion Ethel Young before leaving Bristol to take up his appointment as professor of botany at the University of Leeds. Marion was the younger daughter of Anthony and Sarah Young of Eastfield Road, Cotham, Bristol. The wedding took place on 12August 1911 at the Congregational church in Bishopston, Bristol.[47][f] It was a quiet ceremony, limited to close family,[47] as his paternal grandmother, Annie, had died only a few weeks before on 26July 1911.[75] The honeymoon was spent in West Wales.[47] Marion Ethel was a keen amateur botanist,[47] and along with Priestley, was a member of the British Mycological Society.[76] She organised many social activities at the University of Leeds, including a staff dancing class and "botanical parties" to which all botany staff and students were invited.[69] She died at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, on 25July 1965, aged 79, and the funeral service was held on 2August 1965 at St Mary's church, Great Shelford, followed by cremation at Cambridge Crematorium.[77]
Their younger daughter, Ann Elizabeth, was born at Leeds on 14May 1923. She was educated at the same schools as her sister, and in 1942, entered Girton College as an exhibitioner to study geography.[85] From 1944 to 1945, she was president of the Cambridge University Women's Boat Club.[86] In 1945, she graduated with a BA and won the Thèrèse Montefiore Memorial Prize.[85] From 1945, she was a Tucker-Price research fellow working on water erosion and was awarded a MA by the University of Cambridge in 1949.[85]: 745 [79] From 1946 to 1951, she was a lecturer in geography at the University of Leeds,[85][87] and from 1956, was head of geography and divinity at Perse School for Girls, Panton Street, Cambridge.[88] By 1954, she was a member of the Institute of British Geographers,[89] and in 1966, she was secretary to the Cambridge branch of the Christian Education Movement.[90] She later joined the Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely Naturalists' Trust and was clerk of Great Shelford parish council.[91][92] She died at York on 27January 1986 and was cremated at York crematorium.[93] Her ashes were interred at Lawnswood cemetery in Leeds.[94]
Death and legacy
[Priestley was] sometimes didactic, often provocative, always interesting and, as a whole, one of the most colourful persons in biology.
At the end of December 1935, Priestley was seriously ill and underwent a major operation on 16January 1936.[95] He died after a long illness at his home in Weetwood, Leeds, on 31October 1944, and the funeral was held at Lawnswood crematorium in the morning on 3November 1944.[39][96] A large number of university staff attended including Mouat Jones, Bonamy Dobrée, and Arthur Stanley Turberville. There were also representatives from the Joint Matriculation Board, the Forestry Commission, and James Digby Firth represented the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union and the Leeds Naturalists' Club.[97] Priestley's ashes were later scattered on the gardens of rest at the crematorium.[98] Lorna Scott managed the botany department for eighteen months until Irene Manton was appointed on 15January 1946.[63]
After Priestley's death, a memorial trust fund was established to provide grants to botany students at the University of Leeds.[99] In December 1946, his brother Raymond, then vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham, gifted money to Tewkesbury Grammar School to provide for an annual science prize, named the "Joseph Hubert Priestley Prize" in memory of his brother.[100] Priestley's collection of fossils now forms part of the herbarium at the Leeds Discovery Centre.[67]: 8 A major part of the collection was formed from a bequest made to the University of Leeds by Ida Mary Roper, Priestley's friend and colleague from University College, Bristol.[101]: 53
Edward Cocking, a British plant scientist, has described Priestley as "a highly unorthodox physiological botanist",[102] and Priestley was often the first to admit that some of his early work had been published prematurely.[52] Nevertheless, he was a gifted teacher who attracted many graduate research students to Leeds.[63] Lorna Scott wrote in his obituary:[69]
[Priestley] inspired many generations of students... a remarkably gifted teacher, as one with a mind alive to inspire research...[and] never too busy or too inaccessible to help even the most junior of his assistants or students.
Priestley, Joseph Hubert (October 1913). "Experiments on the Application of Electricity to Crop Production". The Journal of the Board of Agriculture. 20 (7). London: His Majesty's Stationery Office: 582–594. OCLC220755415.
Scott, Lorna Iris; Priestley, Joseph Hubert (October 1925). Pearsall, William Harold; Grist, William Robinson (eds.). "The Bud Scale". The Naturalist (718). London: A. Brown and Sons: 217–228. OCLC456084301. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
^Priestley was known as "Bert" by family and friends.[5]: 200
^In later life, Priestley was a member of the Old Theocsbrian Society, the Abbey House school alumni association, and a regular attendee at the association's annual dinner.[20]
^University College, Bristol, originated as a college teaching external degrees of the University of London. See the history of the external examination system at the University of London Worldwide.
^The scholarship was bequeathed by John Stewart of Montpelier, Bristol, and was worth twenty pounds.[30]
^
Waldron, Malcolm; Willavoys, David (23 July 2016). "Lieutenant Stanley Noel Priestley"(PDF). tewkesburyhistory.org. Tewkesbury Historical Society. p. 1. Archived(PDF) from the original on 3 December 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
^
Waldron, Malcolm; Willavoys, David (30 October 2017). "Lance Corporal Donald Lacey Priestley"(PDF). tewkesburyhistory.org. Tewkesbury Historical Society. p. 1. Archived(PDF) from the original on 3 December 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
^
Priestley, Raymond Edward. "Administrative History" (2007). Papers of Sir Raymond Edward Priestley 1920-2007, Series: University of Birmingham Staff Papers, ID: XUS38. Birmingham: Cadbury Research Library. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
^
Ayerst, David, ed. (November 1966). "News and notes. CEM Local Association". Learning for Living. 6 (2). London: Christian Education Movement: 39–40. doi:10.1080/00239706608557139. OCLC1004313461.
^
Grist, William Robinson; Sledge, William Arthur, eds. (March 1946). "Priestley Memorial Fund". The Naturalist (816). London: A. Brown and Sons: 16. OCLC456084301. Retrieved 6 December 2021.