Who was Michael Faraday?
Discoverer of Benzene, Inventor of the Dynamo
and main architect of Classical Field Theory.
Date and Place of Birth:
22nd September 1791, Newington Butts, now part
of Southwark, England.
Family Background:
Son of a Journeyman Blacksmith and a member of
the Glassite Christian sect.
Education:
Teachings by members of the Sandemanian Sect.
Chronology/Biography of Michael Faraday:
1805: Faraday became
apprenticed to a local bookseller and bookbinder where he developed
an interest in science after having read many of the books on display.
1812: He attended
lectures at the Royal Institution given by Humphry
Davy. Faraday sent Davy his notebook from the lectures which
ran to over three hundred pages which impressed Davy immensely.
1813: Faraday was
appointed as a Chemical Assistant at the Royal Institution which
in effect meant he was Davy's assistant even though Davy had turned
him down for that job. Faraday invented the Bunsen burner in the
course of this work. In October Faraday accompanied Davy and his
wife to Paris. They received a special pass from Napoleon Bonaparte
to make journeys in France to study vulcanism. Faraday initially
went officially as Davy's valet as his normal valet refused to go.
His wife Jane Apreece always treated him like a servant and made
him travel on the outside of the coach and eat with the other servants.
1815: He returned
to England and continued assisting on experiments at the Royal Institution.
1821: Faraday invents
to first electric motor after first working on the principle of
the dynamo which had a conductor wound around a magnetic field.
1823: Faraday liquefies
Chlorine
1824: He is elected
a Member of the Royal Society.
1825: Appointed Director
of the laboratory at the Royal Society.
1826: He started
the Royal Institution's Friday Evening Discourses and the Christmas
Lectures.
1831: Faraday began
a series of experiments which led to the discovery of electromagnetic
induction and the induction ring. He observed that a moving magnet
induces an electric current in a coiled wire. This led him to develop
the transformer. He was to be the first to use terms such as electrode.
1832: Faraday worked
on the effects of static electricity and stated the laws of Electrolysis.
He used the word Ion for the particles he believed which actually
carried the electric current. He was granted an honary Doctorate
by Oxford University.
1833: Appointed Fullerian
Professor of Chemistry.
1836: Appointed Scientific
Adviser to Trinity House.
1839: He continued
his work on Electrolysis and magnetism and proposed that only a
single type of electricity existed but that different amounts of
voltage would induce different effects.
1845: Faraday observed
that light propagation could be influenced by external magnetic
fields.
1848: Albert, The
Prince Consort lobbied to allow Faraday a grace and favour house
in Hampton Court, free from all expenses. He was given the Master
Mason's House, later renamed Faraday House, at Number.37 Hampton
Court Road.
1850: Despite much
experimenting he failed in his attempts to find a link between gravity
and electromagnetism.
1851: He worked on
the planning for the Great Exhibition.
1853: Farady refused
to assist the Government on designing chemical weapons for use in
the Crimean War due to ethical reasons.
1855: He wrote a
letter to the Times Newspaper about the foul conditions of the RIver
Thames which became satirised in Punch Magazine.
1858: Retired to
live in Faraday House, Hampton Court.
1862: Gave evidence
to the Public Schools Commission on education in Great Britain.
He spent the latter years of his life studying light and spectral
change.
Marriage:
12 June 1821 to Sarah Barnard.
Date and Place of Death:
25th August 1867, Hampton Court, Near London,
England.
Age at Death:
76.
Site of Grave:
Highgate “Old” Cemetery, London, England.
Memorial Plaque in Westminster Abbey near the grave of Sir Isaac
Newton.
Places of Interest:
LONDON:
Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albermarle
Street, W1X 4BS. (holds his laboratory and a museum)
There is a statue of Faraday at Savoy Place, outside the Institution
of Engineering and Technology
