business, in due course, descended to Mr. Joule and his elder brother,
and by them was carried on with success till it was sold, in 1854.
Mr. Joule's grandfather came from Elton, in Derbyshire, settled near
Manchester, where he founded the business, and died at the age of
fifty-four, in 1799. His father, one of a numerous family, married a
daughter of John Prescott of Wigan. They had five children, of
whom James Prescott Joule was the second, and of whom three were
sons--Benjamin, the eldest, James, and John--and two daughters--Alice
and Mary. Mr. Joule's mother died in 1836 at the age of forty-eight; and
his father, who was an invalid for many years before his death, died at
the age of seventy-four, in the year 1858.

Young Joule was a delicate child, and was not sent to school. His early
education was commenced by his mother's half sister, and was carried
on at his father's house, Broomhill, Pendlebury, by tutors till he was
about fifteen years of age. At fifteen he commenced working in the
brewery, which, as his father's health declined, fell entirely into the
hands of his brother Benjamin and himself.

Mr. Joule obtained his first instruction in physical science from
Dalton, to whom his father sent the two brothers to learn chemistry.
Dalton, one of the most distinguished chemists of any age or country,
was then President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society,
and lived and received pupils in the rooms of the Society's house. Many
of his most important memoirs were communicated to the Society, whose
_Transactions_ are likewise enriched by a large number of communications
from his distinguished pupil. Dalton's instruction to the two young men
commenced with arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. He then taught them
natural philosophy out of Cavallo's text-book, and afterward, but only
for a short time before his health gave way, in 1837, chemistry from his