![]() ![]() He also quickly attracted the attention of Elihu Robinson, the most prominent of the local Friends and a naturalist of no mean stature. He made rapid progress in the village Quaker school, which he himself unsuccessfully took over at the age of twelve. ![]() This network of connections, coupled with the sect’s strong emphasis on education and the interest in natural philosophy displayed by so many of its members, is the key to understanding the peculiarly favorable context in which Dalton grew and matured as a scientific thinker.Īlthough his father appears to have been somewhat feckless, his mother came from a more prosperous local family, and John was strongly influenced by her determination and tenacity. Strong links were forged between these Northern Friends, Quaker manufacturers in the Midlands, London Quaker merchants, and Philadelphia residents. The area was thus peculiarly important within the developing international life of the Society of Friends. George Fox had earlier seen his first major evangelistic success in this region, whole villages and families (including the Daltons) undergoing conversion to his doctrines. In the eighteenth century, west Cumberland enjoyed considerable prosperity as a mining and trading area, with an important series of coastal ports engaged in local and overseas commerce. ![]() Only when Jonathan, a bachelor, died in 1834 did the then considerably augmented acreage finally pass to John Dalton, who by that time had independently accumulated wealth sufficient to his own frugal and celibate ways. The property Joseph then inherited passed at his death the following year to Jonathan, his elder son. Joseph, himself a younger son, had no holding until his elder brother died without issue in 1786. From that time the family seems to have owned and farmed a small amount of land. The Daltons can be traced back in west Cumberland at least to the late sixteenth century. John was the second son of a modest Quaker weaver, Joseph Dalton, and Mary Greenup. If the provincial Dissenter of dubiously middle–class background, obscure education, and self–made opportunity is the characteristics figure of late eighteenth–century English natural philosophy, then John Dalton is the classic example of the species. Eaglesfield, Cumberland, England, 6 September 1766 d. ![]()
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