His first separate publication was Meteorological Observations and Essays (1793), which contained the germs of several of his later discoveries but in spite of the originality of its matter, the book met with only a limited sale. Mainly through John Gough (1757–1825), a blind philosopher to whose aid he owed much of his scientific knowledge, he was appointed teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy at the New College in Moseley Street (in 1889 transferred to Manchester College, Oxford), and that position he retained until the removal of the college to York in 1799, when he became a “public and private teacher of mathematics and chemistry.”ĭuring his residence in Kendal, Dalton had contributed solutions of problems and questions on various subjects to the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Diaries, and in 1787 he began to keep a meteorological diary in which during the succeeding fifty-seven years he entered more than 200,000 observations. About 1790 he seems to have thought of taking up law or medicine, but his projects met with no encouragement from his relatives and he remained at Kendal till, in the spring of 1793, he moved to Manchester, where he spent the rest of his life. There he passed the next twelve years, becoming in 1785, through the retirement of his cousin, joint manager of the school with his elder brother Jonathan.

But he had received some instruction in mathematics from a distant relative, Elihu Robinson, and in 1781 he left his native village to become assistant to his cousin George Bewley who kept a school at Kendal. This youthful venture was not successful, the amount he received in fees being only about five shillings a week, and after two years he took to farm work. John received his early education from his father and from John Fletcher, teacher of the Quakers’ school at Eaglesfield, on whose retirement in 1778 he himself started teaching. His father, Joseph Dalton, was a weaver in poor circumstances, who, with his wife (Deborah Greenup), belonged to the Society of Friends they had three children-Jonathan, John and Mary.

DALTON, JOHN (1766–1844), English chemist and physicist, was born about the 6th of September 1766 at Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth in Cumberland.

John dalton atomic theory date