INTERNATIONAL delegates will gather at Huddersfield University to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of the man who discovered oxygen.
The conference, in honour of Birstall-born chemist Joseph Priestley, begins on July 4.
Appropriately it is being sponsored by the British Oxygen Company.
Visitors from the USA will attend the conference, which coincides with American Independence Day.
Dr Priestley Toulmin, great-great-great-great-grandson of Priestley, will travel from Virginia to the event.
Priestley rose from a humble background to become one of the world's foremost chemical scientists.
He is also credited as the founder of the Unitarian Church in America.
Priestley emigrated to the US in 1774 owing to hostility to his religious and political beliefs in England.
He died in February 1804.
A spokesman for Huddersfield University said: "We are holding recognition of the outstanding achievements of one of Kirklees' most famous sons."
Chemistry was first taught at a forerunner of Huddersfield University in 1844, when classes were taken by a local manufacturing chemist.
