oined in the proceedings was Edgeworth, who in 1768 was
speculating upon moving carriages by steam, and Thomas Day, whose
_Sandford and Merton_ helped to spread in England the educational
theories of Rousseau. Priestley, who settled at Birmingham in 1780,
became a member, and was helped in his investigations by Watt's counsels
and Wedgwood's pecuniary help. Among occasional visitors were Smeaton,
Sir Joseph Banks, Solander, and Herschel of scientific celebrity; while
the literary magnate, Dr. Parr, who lived between Warwick and
Birmingham, occasionally joined the circle. Wedgwood, though too far off
to be a member, was intimate with Darwin and associated in various
enterprises with Boulton. Wedgwood's congenial partner, Thomas Bentley
(1731-1780), had been in business at Manchester and at Liverpool. He had
taken part in founding the Warrington 'Academy,' the dissenting seminary
(afterwards moved to Manchester) of which Priestley was tutor
(1761-1767), and had lectured upon art at the academy founded at
Liverpool in 1773. Another member of the academy was William Roscoe
(1753-1831), whose literary taste was shown by his lives of Lorenzo de
Medici and Leo X., and who distinguished himself by opposing the
slave-trade, then the infamy of his native town. Allied with him in this
movement were William Rathbone and James Currie (1756-1805) the
biographer of Burns, a friend of Darwin and an intelligent physician. At
Manchester Thomas Perceval (1740-1804) founded the 'Literary and
Philosophical Society' in 1780. He was a pupil of the Warrington
Academy, which he afterwards joined on removing to Manchester, and he
formed the scheme afterwards realised by Owens College. He was an early
advocate of sanitary measures and factory legislation, and a man of
scientific reputation. Other members of the society were: John Ferriar
(1761-1815), best known by his _Illustrations of Sterne_, but also a man
of literary and scientific reputation; the great chemist, John Dalton
(1766-1844), who contributed many papers to its transactions; and, for a
short time, the Socialist Robert Owen, then a rising manufacturer. At
Norwich, then important as a manufacturing centre, was a similar circle.
William Taylor, an eminent Unitarian divine, who died at the Warrington
Academy in 1761, had lived at Norwich. One of his daughters married
David Martineau and became the mother of Harriet Martineau, who has
described the Norwich of her early years. John Taylor,