John Dalton was born into a Quaker family in Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth in northeast England. His father was a handloom weaver and the family were comparatively poor. Like his brother, Dalton was born colour blind, something that would prove significant in later life.
Dalton attended the Quaker school in his village, but was only 12 years old when he began teaching the younger children there. At fourteen, he began work as a farmhand for fellow Quaker and scientist Elihu Robinson, who soon recognised Dalton's potential.
At 15 Dalton became an assistant teacher at a Quaker boarding school in the nearby town of Kendal. There he was encouraged and taught Latin, Greek, French and Maths by another Quaker, John Gough. At only 19, he became the principal of the school.
Dalton was profoundly interested in meteorology. He kept detailed records of weather observations all his adult life. In 1793, he published Meteorological Reflections and Essays. This led to Dalton being offered a post as a tutor in maths and philosophy at New College, Manchester. This was one of the ‘dissenting academies’ being set up to provide higher education for non-conformists (those who did not belong to the Church of England) who were barred from entering the universities. (After several changes of location, it ended up in Oxford, as Harris Manchester College).
A few years later, he joined the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, where he had the use of laboratories to carry out his research. The first paper he delivered there, in 1794, was on the hereditary nature of colour blindness – sometimes still referred to as ‘Daltonism – and techniques for diagnosing it.
