Major Percival Thomas Priestly MB, MRCS
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Major Percival Thomas Priestly MB, MRCS Percival is the great-great-great nephew of Joseph Priestley, who was born in 1833 at Birstall, Yorkshire.i He is best known for discovering oxygen but he also identified carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and six other gases. He was also a philosopher, theologian and clergyman who wrote more than one hundred and fifty publications. Joseph strongly believed in the free and open exchange of ideas and was an advocate of tolerance and equal rights for religious dissenters which led him to found the Figure 1: Joseph Priestley Unitarian Church in Britain. As a supporter of both the American and French Revolutions, Joseph freely expressed his views, often from the pulpit. Some of these views were considered to be seditious by the British establishment and many citizens. Anger at the supporters of the French Revolution holding a Bastille Day dinner at the Royal Hotel in Birmingham on July 14, 1791, resulted in a mob attacking the chapels and homes of dissenters in a four-day frenzy often referred to as the Priestley Riots. The rioters began at the Royal Hotel, then Priestley's church and home. Joseph was forewarned and made his escape stopping overnight at the home of Thomas Hawkes on Moseley-Green. Another chronicler refers to Thomas’ Wake Green house being on the Wake Green Road between St Agnes Road and Billesley Lane. Joseph’s stay here was short-lived as this house too Figure 2: The attack on Joseph Priestley's home, Fairhill, at Sparkbrook, Birmingham on 14 July 1791 was wrecked.ii Figure 3: (Left) Map of Wake Green in the 1930’s naming and indicating the location of Wake Green House between St Agnes Road and Billesley Lane on the Wake Green Road. (Right) An earlier map showing the outline of Wake Green House and surrounds Figure 4: Moseley Hall, around the time of the riots in 1791 On 16th July, the rioters arrived at Moseley Hall the second home of John Taylor, one of the founders of Lloyds Bank. They carefully moved all of the furniture and belongings of its occupant, the frail Dowager Lady Carhampton (a relative of George III) out of the house before they burned it. The mob also attacked the homes of people they associated with Dissenters, such as members of the scientific Lunar Society. All in all, four Dissenting churches were severely damaged or burned down, twenty-seven homes and several businesses were attacked, many looted and burned.iii The national government was slow to respond to the Dissenters' pleas for help and local Birmingham officials were later reluctant to prosecute any of the ringleaders. Figure 5: A cartoon by James Gilray, who opposed the riots. Less than a week after the riots, the etching mocks Joseph Priestley giving a Birmingham toast, as given on 14th July 1791, with a full goblet, offering an empty communion plate and calling for a head, implied to be the King’s among other well-known Liberals, with the grim faces of the Dissenters holding court in a parody of the iconic Last supper Percival’s grandfather, a wool merchant also called Joseph Priestley, was a great nephew of the famous scientist. He resided at Morley Hall, Birstall, Yorkshire about seven miles SW of Leeds. He was married twice. His first marriage was to Mary Overend. Joseph had three children with Mary, William Overend Priestley, John and Joseph born in 1829, 1831 and 1835 respectively.iv Mary died on 12th October 1835 ‘after an illness of a few days,’ following the birth of Joseph on 4th October 1835. She was only thirty-two years old.v Figure 6: The baptismal record of Joseph, Mary and Joseph’s last born son. He was not baptised until 27th May 1841 Figure 7: Percival’s uncle, Sir William Overend Priestley and his obituary On 16th May 1843, Joseph remarried. His second wife was Ann, daughter of George Tomlinson, a farmer, in the hamlet of Cowlam in the Yorkshire Wolds. Joseph and Mary set up home at 26 Portland Crescent, Leeds. By 1849, Joseph had relinquished his cloth manufacturing business in favour of the gas industry which was then lighting numerous towns and cities throughout Britain. He was elected to the office of collector for the New Gas Company.vi Figure 8: The appointment of Joseph as the manager of the New Gas Company The 1851 census recorded that Joseph and Ann had three children living with them, William, a medical student (Joseph’s son by his first wife) together with Thomas and Benjamin Wood Priestleyvii born in 1845 and 1850 respectively. Sadly Benjamin died the following year, By 1861, Joseph had relinquished his position at the New Gas Company and continued in business as a hardware merchant and cloth manufacturer until his retirement. Two further children Charles Arthur and Anne Jane were born in 1851 and 1857 respectively.viii Thomas Priestley, Joseph’s eldest son by Ann, went to Leeds Grammar School after which he took up Holy Orders. In 1868 Thomas became a curate, firstly in Bethnal Green and then Spitalfields, before he was appointed the Vicar of St Peter’s Church, Hoxton Square, Shoreditch, East London in July 1878. St Peter’s church was Figure 9: Former Leeds Grammar School with its chapel on the left founded in 1869 but closed in 1937. On 3rd September 1885, Thomas was married to Emmeline Amelia, the youngest daughter of the late Thomas Brown Esq, MRCS of 16 Finsbury Circus, at St Saviour’s Church, Denmark Park, Southwark, London by Rev H. L. Brown, MA curate of Holy Trinity, Hoxton, brother of the bride, assisted by Rev H. S. Swithinbank BA, vicar of St Peter’s Church, Hoxton Square..ix On 1st February 1888, Emmeline gave birth to a son, Percival Thomas Priestley.x In 1894, after sixteen years in London, Thomas was given a new living as the vicar of St Mary Magdalene church, Albrighton, about seven miles northwest of Wolverhampton. It was quite a transition from the East End of London to the relative tranquillity of a quiet rural parish. In addition he was following on from a ‘great old man,’ the Reverend George Woodhouse, who had been the vicar of the parish for fifty-eight years.xi Thomas’ only child, Percival, attended St Michael’s College in April 1899, an Independent boarding school in Tenbury, Worcestershire. He left at Christmas 1902 for Shrewsbury School where he completed his education in 1906.xii The following year, on 4th October 1907, Percival entered Birmingham University as a medical student. During his time at university Percival joined the Officer Training Corps (OTC) enlisting in 1909 for three years. Leaving as a Sergeant, Percival became the Medical Officer of the senior OTC. He graduated with a first class degree and also received the Richards Memorial Prize in 1911.xiii Just before graduating, Percival applied for a Commission in the Special Reserve of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). The application was approved and he was appointed a Lieutenant (on probation) and gazetted on 30th March 1911. Four months later, Percival arrived at Aldershot to start a three and a half month course of instruction with the RAMC. Having completed the course, Percival returned to Birmingham to start his resident appointments at the General Hospital as a house physician and surgeon. In 1913 he gained the Gold Medal for clinical midwifery. On 15th June 1914, Percival applied for, and in July passed, a competitive final examination for the RAMC. The new Dean of the Medical Faculty, Figure 10: Percival Priestley Peter Thompson, gave a reference describing Percival as ‘a gentleman of excellent character and conduct and has good ability’.xiv Percival was gazetted a full Lieutenant on 31st July 1914 and less than two weeks after war was declared on 3rd August he was posted to France.xv After a period of sick leave at home Percival had the charge of Lady Tennyson’s Hospital at Afton Lodge, Freshwater, Isle of Wight.xvi During his time at home he took the opportunity to marry Ellen, daughter of Charles Underhill, from Burton- on-Trent at St Mary’s Church, Moseley, Birmingham, on 14th Figure 11: Afton Lodge, now divided into flats January 1915. Shortly after, he was posted to the Near East where he served at Anzac on the Gallipoli Peninsula until the evacuation of the Allied Forces in December 1916 to Lemnos, an island off the coast of Turkey, and then on to Alexandra, Egypt after which he returned to England.xvii Percival’s next posting was Greece. He set sail from Southampton on 29th June 1917, en route to Salonika via Taranto in Italy arriving on 15th July. During his time there he was appointed a temporary Major. Figure 12: Map of the Salonika Front in 1918. Highlighted is the location of 25th Casualty Clearing Station near the Front Line Fourteen months later, while serving in Salonika, Percival caught influenza and was taken to No 25 Casualty Clearing Station for treatment on 23rd September 1918.He had been running a temperature from 101˚- 105˚F for several days before admission. Despite taking nourishment and stimulants well, his condition deteriorated and at 0330 on 28th September and he died of pneumonia.xviii Percival was buried at Salonika (Lembet Road) Military Cemetery, Salonika Figure 13: (Left) Percival’s headstone at Lembet Road Military Cemetery, Salonika (Above) Lembet Road Military Cemetery Percival is also commemorated at Birmingham University’s WW1 memorial, St Michael’s Church, Tenbury, St Mary Magdalene Church, Albrighton and St Mary’s Church, Moseley and is named on the Roll of Honour at Shrewsbury School and Birmingham’s Hall of memory.