The Lunar Men: the friends who made the future, by Jenny Uglow

In an 18th-century Midlands manufacturing town, a group of talented, free-thinking colleagues forged a technological revolution. Roy Hattersley looks for their winning formula

Writing his memoirs in American exile, Joseph Priestley – scientist, philosopher and preacher – sadly conceded that "there is universally something presumptuous in provincial genius". It is easy enough to understand why Priestley, who "isolated" oxygen, evangelised for "rational dissent" and invented soda water, attracted so much antagonism. For he rejoiced in being an outsider: "I bless God that I was born a dissenter, not manacled by the chains of so debasing a system as that of the Church of England, and that I was not educated at Oxford or Cambridge."

Despite Priestley's delight in his essentially humble origins, it was not the establishment which most resented his ability to attain intellectual eminence. In 1766, he was proposed for membership of the Royal Society: a tribute to the imminent publication of his History and Present State of Electricity.

It was the Birmingham mob which drove him out of Britain. They were not sure which of his views caused them the most offence. He was sympathetic towards the French Revolution and, therefore, some supposed, a Jacobin in general – as much opposed to the House of Hanover as the Bourbons. Others, mindless patriots, thought him a Papist.

The result was a week-long riot which only ended after "four meeting houses and 27 houses had been attacked; at least eight rioters and one special constable had been killed and many more had been injured". The property damaged and destroyed belonged to the greatest congregation of scientific and entrepreneurial talent ever to engage in friendly discourse. Because they met on the Monday night nearest to the full moon (an expedient to guarantee a safe journey home) they called themselves the Lunar Society. Membership, as well as Priestley, included Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood and Erasmus Darwin.

The Lunar Men tells the story of the friendships which, as Jenny Uglow rightly claims in her sub-title, made the future. At least they helped to make the modern world. Their discoveries, from Henry Cray's hard papier-mâché to Galton's demonstration that the full prism of colours combined to produce a clear white, were only part of their bequest to posterity.

Much of their heritage was a state of mind that encouraged them to turn scientific progress into commercial success. Apart from Priestley himself, "they were 'gaffers', masters who could do all the tasks their men did but were quick to build the skills they needed. They combined an equal passion for design and technique and were imaginative experimenters."

Equally important, they did not think themselves too elevated to accept the less attractive disciplines of trade. They worked hard to win patronage. Boulton wrote to tell his wife that, having heard that Lady Shelbourne was indisposed with a sore throat, he had sent "a few pretty things to amuse her". Boulton in particular seems to have courted influential company, and made no secret of it. The society members were scientists and entrepreneurs, not gentlemen.

Each member of the Lunar Society deserves a biography. Combining their lives – emotions as well as achievements – in a single, coherent volume is a task that few writers could have accomplished with anything like success. Jenny Uglow manages the near impossible by writing with an ingenuity which the Lunar Men themselves would have admired. Some chapters are virtually straight biographies. Others draw the society together in descriptions of their areas (both geographical and intellectual) of exploration. The result is amazement that men of such enterprise and talent should come together in what was then a a relatively small provincial town.

The emergence of Birmingham as the centre of the industrial enlightenment was no coincidence. It had been strong for Parliament against the king in the Civil Wars, and remained a haven for Quakers, nonconformists and dissenters – men who felt none of the constraints which limited thought and action in the Established Church. They were not universally radical. Priestley was unequivocally for the American colonists in revolt, but Boulton worried about the effects of independence on trade. Wedgwood and Priestley were unequivocally for democracy – a dangerous aberration in late 18th-century England. But, more important in terms of their historical significance, all (with the exception of the pedagogic Priestley) were entrepreneurs by nature.

Part of the strength of Jenny Uglow's narrative is the way in which it demonstrates that the Lunar Men were able to combine a thirst for knowledge with an enthusiasm to put their new discoveries to good commercial use. Wedgwood wonders if electricity – the vogue of the hour – could be somehow used in decorating pottery, and determines to develop the canal system as the safe and speedy conduit between kiln and London. Boulton worries that if he registers his new designs in the London Assay Office, they will be stolen. But, while all the agonies of commerce are being resolved, they still meet on moonlit nights to discuss the nature of the elements.

There are moments when it seems Uglow is so impressed by the weight of the Lunar Society's achievements and the breadth of its members' interests that she feels it necessary to lapse into deferential prose. If the whole book was written in the style of the introduction, it would be a reverential work rather than the fine examination of a crucial, but neglected, era in British history. But she recovers her equilibrium in time to make clear the Lunar Men's most important characteristic.

They were enthusiasts – for life in general, as well as scientific investigation and commercial enterprise in particular. Erasmus Darwin, an early exponent of the theory of evolution which his grandson developed, described their theory of life in doggerel verse:

"Shout round the world, how reproduction strives
With vanquished Death – and Happiness survives
How Life increasing peoples every clime
And young renascent Nature Conquers Time".

Progress is the child of optimism. For 25 years in the 18th century, Birmingham was the home to both parent and offspring. The lineal descendant of that family was the Industrial Revolution.

Roy Hattersley's life of John Wesley, 'A Brand from the Burning', is published next month by Little, Brown