Joseph Priestley

He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier also have a claim to the discovery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley

cf PriestleyRiots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestley_Riots

• The riots started with an attack on Birmingham's Royal Hotel – the site of a banquet organized in sympathy with the French Revolution. Then, beginning with Joseph Priestley's church and home, the rioters attacked or burned four Dissenting chapels, twenty-seven houses, and several businesses. Many of them became intoxicated by liquor that they found while looting, or with which they were bribed to stop burning homes. A small core could not be bribed, however, and remained sober. The rioters burned not only the homes and chapels of Dissenters, but also the homes of people they associated with Dissenters, such as members of the scientific Lunar Society.