On Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Michael Faraday, the third of four children of James
Faraday (1761–1810) and his wife, Margaret Hastwell Faraday (1764–1838), was
born in Newington Butts on 22nd September 1791. James Faraday and all his
children belonged to the small Christian sect called in Scotland the Glasites
after their founder, John Glas, and in England the Sandemanians, after Robert
Sandeman, who had brought these religious views to the country. Faraday worked
as a blacksmith with James Boyd, a Sandemanian ironmonger of Welbeck Street,
London.
Faraday later recalled: "my education was of
the most ordinary description, consisting of little more than the rudiments of
reading, writing, and arithmetic at a common day-school. My hours out of school
were passed at home and in the streets". In 1804 he became an errand boy,
delivering among other things newspapers, for the bookseller George Riebau of 2
Blandford Street. In October 1805, at the age of fourteen, he was indentured
for seven years to Riebau as an apprentice bookbinder. It was during this
apprenticeship that he developed an interest in chemistry. Faraday wrote:
"whilst an apprentice, I loved to read the scientific books which were
under my hands." He later thanked Riebau for helping him in his education:
"you kindly interested yourself in the progress I made in the knowledge of
facts relating to the different theories in existence, readily permitting me to
examine those books in your possession that were in any way related to the
subjects occupying my attention." This included reading books by Jane
Marcet (Conversations on Chemistry) and Isaac Watts (Improvement of the Mind).
In the spring of 1812, the year his apprenticeship
ended, William Dance, a customer of Riebau's, gave Faraday tickets to attend
four lectures to be delivered by the professor of chemistry at the Royal
Institution, Humphry Davy. He later recalled: "Sir H. Davy proceeded to
make a few observations on the connections of science with other parts of
polished and social life. Here it would be impossible for me to follow him. I
should merely injure and destroy the beautiful and sublime observations that
fell from his lips. He spoke in the most energetic and luminous manner of the
Advancement of the Arts and Sciences. Of the connection that had always existed
between them and other parts of a Nation's economy. During the whole of these
observations his delivery was easy, his diction elegant, his tone good and his
sentiments sublime." After becoming interested in science, Faraday applied
to Davy for a job. In 1813 Faraday became his temporary assistant and spent the
next 18 months touring Europe while during Davy's investigations into his
theory of volcanic action.
His biographer, Frank James, wrote: "Davy had
obtained a special passport from Napoleon stipulating that he could be
accompanied only by his wife and two others. With Jane Davy requiring a maid,
Davy (claiming that his valet had suddenly withdrawn) asked Faraday to
undertake the tasks of a valet, making a promise, never fulfilled, to find a
valet once they were on the continent. Faraday reluctantly agreed but this was
the source of considerable friction between him and Jane Davy, who regarded him
as a servant. For eighteen months they toured France, Switzerland, Italy, and
southern Germany visiting many chemical laboratories. They met, among others,
André-Marie Ampère in Paris, Charles-Gaspard and Arthur-Auguste De La Rive in
Geneva, and the aged Alessandro Volta in Italy. Davy demonstrated the elemental
nature of iodine to the French and in Florence showed that diamond was composed
of carbon using the burning-glass of the duke of Tuscany. They witnessed the
end of Napoleon's empire but following Napoleon's escape from Elba for the
hundred days Davy decided to cut short the tour and returned to England in the
middle of April 1815."
Faraday was also inspired by the work of Joseph
Priestley: "Dr. Priestley had that freedom of mind, and that independence
of dogma and of preconceived notions, by which men are so often bowed down and
carried forward from fallacy to fallacy, their eyes not being opened to see
what that fallacy is. I am very anxious at this time to exhort you all, - as I
trust you all are pursuers of science, - to attend to these things; for Dr
Priestley made his great discoveries mainly in consequence of his having a mind
which could be easily moved from what it had held to the reception of new
thoughts and notions; and I will venture to say that all his discoveries
followed from the facility with which he could leave a preconceived idea."
On 21 May 1821 Faraday was appointed acting
superintendent of the house of the Royal Institution. The following month he
married Sarah Barnard (1800–1879), daughter of the Sandemanian silversmith
Edward Barnard (1767–1855). From the evidence that has survived the Faradays's
marriage appears to have been happy and she was very supportive of his work.
Although they had no children, at least two nieces lived with them for extended
periods, Margery Ann Reid (1815–1888) and Jane Barnard (1832–1911).
Humphry Davy gave Faraday a valuable scientific
education and also introduced him to important scientists in Europe. One
scientist, Henry Paul Harvey, commented: "Sir H. Davy's greatest discovery
was Michael Faraday." After Davy retired in 1827, Faraday replaced him as
professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution. Faraday began to publish
details of his research including condensation of gases, optical deceptions and
the isolation of benzene from gas oils.
Faraday's greatest contribution to science was in
the field of electricity. In 1821 he began experimenting with electromagnetism
and by demonstrating the conversion of electrical energy into motive force,
invented the electric motor. In 1831 Faraday discovered the induction of
electric currents and made the first dynamo. In 1837 he demonstrated that
electrostatic force consists of a field of curved lines of force, and conceived
a specific inductive capacity. This led to Faraday being able to develop his
theories on light and gravitational systems.
Harper's Magazine published an article stating:
"At no period of Michael Faraday's unmatched career was he interested in
utility. He was absorbed in disentangling the riddles of the universe, at first
chemical riddles, in later periods, physical riddles. As far as he cared, the
question of utility was never raised. Any suspicion of utility would have
restricted his restless curiosity. In the end, utility resulted, but it was
never a criterion to which his ceaseless experimentation could be
subjected." William Ewart Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, once
asked Michael Faraday about the practical worth of electricity. He said he did
not know but "there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax
it!"
Faraday told a friend: "I have never had any
student or pupil under me to aid me with assistance; but have always prepared
and made my experiments with my own hands, working and thinking at the same
time. I do not think I could work in company, or think aloud, or explain my
thoughts at the time. Sometimes I and my assistant have been in the Laboratory
for hours & days together, he preparing some lecture apparatus or cleaning
up, & scarcely a word has passed between us; - all this being a consequence
of the solitary & isolated system of investigation; in contradistinction to
that pursued by a Professor with his aids & pupils as in your
Universities."
Faraday was very keen to educate the public on
science. In one lecture he argued: "If the term education may be
understood in so large a sense as to include all that belongs to the improvement
of the mind, either by the acquisition of the knowledge of others or by
increase of it through its own exertions, we learn by them what is the kind of
education science offers to man. It teaches us to be neglectful of nothing -
not to despise the small beginnings, for they precede of necessity all great
things in the knowledge of science, either pure or applied."
Friedrich Von Raumer was one of those impressed by
the lecturers of Faraday: "He (Michael Faraday) speaks with ease and
freedom, but not with a gossipy, unequal tone, alternately inaudible and
bawling, as some very learned professors do; he delivers himself with
clearness, precision and ability. Moreover, he speaks his language in a manner
which confirmed me in a secret suspicion that I had, that a number of
Englishmen speak it very badly."
Jane Pollack wrote in the St. Paul's Magazine that
Faraday was an outstanding speaker: "It was an irresistible eloquence
which compelled attention and invited upon sympathy. There was a gleaming in
his eyes which no painter could copy, and which no poet could describe. Their
radiance seemed to send a strange light into the very heart of his
congregation, and when he spoke, it was felt that the stir of his voice and the
fervour of his words could belong only to the owner of those kindling eyes. His
thought was rapid and made its way in new phrases. His enthusiasm seemed to
carry him to the point of ecstasy when he expatiated on the beauties of Nature,
and when he lifted the veil from her deep mysteries. His body then took motion
from his mind; his hair streamed out from his head; his hands were full of
nervous action; his light, lithe body seemed to quiver with its eager life. His
audience took fire with him, and every face was flushed."
The physicist, John Tyndall, recalled:
"Underneath his sweetness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. He was
a man of excitable and fiery nature; but through high self-discipline he had
converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of
permitting it to waste itself in useless passion. Faraday was not slow to
anger, but he completely ruled his own spirit, and thus, though he took no
cities, he captivated all hearts."
Faraday became a close friend of Angela
Burdett-Coutts. According to Edna Healey, the author of Lady Unknown: The Life
of Angela Burdett-Coutts (1978): "In Michael Faraday she found a
brilliant, searching mind combined with a simple child-like faith that matched
her own. The greatest experimental genius of his time, the man who discovered the
laws of electrolysis, of light and magnetism, he was at ease in her company.
The blacksmith's son who hated the social scene, made exceptions for her... As
their friendship grew, he would call on her after the Friday lectures at the
Royal Institution, eventually persuading her to apply for membership of the
Royal Society."
On 19th January, 1847, Faraday wrote to Miss
Burdett-Coutts: "For twenty years I have devoted all my exertions and
powers to the advancement of science in this Institution; and for the last ten
years or more I have given up all professional business and a large income with
it for the same purpose... Although I earnestly desire to see lady members
received amongst us, as in former times, do not let anything I have said induce
you to do what may be not quite agreeable to your own inclinations." In
February 1847 she became a full member of the Royal Society.
Michael Faraday rejected the Presidency of the Royal
Society. He told John Tyndall: "Tyndall... I must remain plain Michael
Faraday to the last; and let me now tell you, that if accepted the honour which
the Royal Society desires to confer upon me, I would not answer for the
integrity of my intellect for a single year. On being offered the Presidency of
the Royal Society."
The government recognized his contribution to
science by granting him a pension and giving him a house in Hampton Court.
However, Faraday was unwilling to use his scientific knowledge to help military
action and in 1853 refused to help develop poison gases to be used in the
Crimean War. Faraday was the author of several books including Experimental
Researches in Electricity and Chemical History of the Candle.
In 1853 spiritualism and table-turning became
fashionable. Faraday examined the phenomenon and came to the conclusion that
table-turning was caused by a quasi-involuntary muscular action, and had
nothing to do with supernatural agency. In a letter to The Times stating his
results, Faraday concluded by saying that the educational system must be
deficient since otherwise well-educated people would not believe in the
phenomenon in the way they did.
His biographer, Frank James, has pointed out:
"In 1856 Faraday started his last major research project. Following George
Gabriel Stokes's work on fluorescence in the early 1850s, which showed that a
ray of light could change its wavelength after passing through a solution of
sulphate of quinine, Faraday tried to realize this change directly. To achieve
this he passed light through beaten gold and later colloidal solutions of gold.
The wavelength of light was larger than the size of the gold particles, and yet
they still affected the light. He sought to explain this phenomenon but, as
with his work on gravity, came to no firm conclusions. Faraday's last piece of
experimental work in 1862 was to see if magnetism had any effect on line
spectra."
Michael Faraday died at his home, The Green, Hampton
Court, where he died on 25th August 1867. He was buried five days later in the
Sandemanian plot in Highgate cemetery.
