Michael Faraday
The Bookbinder Who Found the Link Between Electricity and Magnetism
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His work included fundamental research in chemistry and electricity. He discovered diamagnetism and developed the concept of the Faraday cage. Faraday also established the Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution, a tradition that continues today for young audiences.
This biography covers Faraday's early life, adult scientific achievements, and later years of public service. Each chapter explores his chemical discoveries, electrical experiments, and contributions to scientific education. Anyone interested in how one self-taught scientist changed our understanding of electricity will find this worth their time.
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Michael Faraday entered the world on 22 September 1791 in Newington Butts, Surrey, now part of the London Borough of Southwark. His family lived modestly. His father, James, belonged to the Glasite sect of Christianity. In the winter of 1790, James moved his wife Margaret and their children from Outhgill in Westmorland, where he had worked as a blacksmith's apprentice. Michael arrived in the autumn of 1791, making him the third of four children. The young Faraday received little formal schooling and instead taught himself.
At fourteen, Michael Faraday began an apprenticeship with George Riebau, a bookbinder and bookseller on Blandford Street. Over the next seven years, he immersed himself in reading, including Isaac Watts’s The Improvement of the Mind, which he took seriously and put into practice. He also attended meetings of the City Philosophical Society, where he listened to lectures on science and developed a strong interest in electricity. A particular inspiration came from Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry.
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In 1812, at twenty years old and finishing his apprenticeship, Michael Faraday attended lectures by Humphry Davy and John Tatum, with tickets provided by William Dance. Faraday later sent Davy a 300-page book based on his notes. Davy responded positively. The next year, after Davy injured his eyesight in an accident involving nitrogen trichloride, he hired Faraday as an assistant at the Royal Institution. One of the existing assistants, John Payne, had recently been let go, and Davy needed someone to replace him. Faraday was appointed Chemical Assistant on March 1, 1813. Soon, Davy began trusting him with preparing nitrogen trichloride samples, which resulted in an explosion that injured both men.
Faraday married Sarah Barnard on 12 June 1821 after meeting through their families at the Sandemanian church. He later confessed his faith to the congregation. They had no children. Faraday was a devout Christian, belonging to a Sandemanian denomination that originated from the Church of Scotland. After his marriage, he served as deacon and then as elder in the meeting house located at Paul's Alley in the Barbican. That church relocated in 1862 to Barnsbury Grove in Islington, where he served two terms as elder before resigning. Biographers have noted that "a strong sense of the unity of God and nature pervaded Faraday's life and work."
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In June 1832, the University of Oxford gave Faraday an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree. He was offered a knighthood later, but turned it down because of his religious beliefs, saying it went against the Bible to seek wealth or worldly reward. He preferred to stay "plain Mr Faraday to the end." Faraday had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1824 and twice refused the chance to become its president. In 1833, he accepted the position as the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution.
In 1832, Faraday joined the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a Foreign Honorary Member. The following year, he was welcomed into the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. By 1840, he had become a member of the American Philosophical Society. Then in 1844, he was chosen from among eight foreign members to join the French Academy of Sciences. In 1849, Faraday was named an associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands. Two years later, that institution evolved into the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Faraday was made a foreign member.
Faraday experienced a nervous breakdown in 1839, but he recovered and went back to his work with electromagnetism. In 1848, because of efforts made by the Prince Consort, Faraday was given a house at Hampton Court in Middlesex. It was the Master Mason's House, later known as Faraday House, and today it is No. 37 Hampton Court Road. He moved there in 1858 to retire.
Faraday served the British government on several projects, but when asked to advise on chemical weapons for the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856, he refused, citing ethical concerns. He also turned down offers to publish his lectures, believing that they would lose their impact without the accompanying live experiments. In a letter responding to a publisher’s offer, he wrote: “I have always loved science more than money & because my occupation is almost entirely personal I cannot afford to get rich.”
Michael Faraday passed away at his home in Hampton Court on 25 August 1867, at the age of seventy-five. Years earlier, he had declined an invitation to be buried in Westminster Abbey. His memory is honored instead by a plaque located near Isaac Newton’s resting place. Faraday himself was buried in the non-Anglican section of Highgate Cemetery.
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Faraday started his chemical career working with Humphry Davy, where he focused on chlorine and identified two new compounds: hexachloroethane from chlorinating ethylene and tetrachloroethylene from breaking down the first. He also began early studies into gas diffusion, a process first noticed by John Dalton. Later, Faraday managed to liquefy several gases, examined steel alloys, and created new kinds of glass for optical purposes. One of these dense glasses became historically significant when placed in a magnetic field—Faraday observed that it rotated the plane of polarized light. That same piece was also the first substance shown to be repelled by magnetic poles.
Faraday crafted an early version of the Bunsen burner, a tool that would go on to become a standard piece of equipment in labs across the globe. It's a simple yet effective device, using gas and air to create a controlled flame for heating materials. Though the name Bunsen burner comes from Robert Bunsen, who improved its design later, Faraday’s original version laid the groundwork for what we now use daily in science classrooms and research facilities. This invention highlights how one person's ingenuity can shape the tools that define scientific practice for generations.
Faraday made significant contributions to chemistry, discovering substances like benzene, which he called bicarburet of hydrogen, and successfully liquefying gases such as chlorine. This work helped prove that gases are vapors of liquids with very low boiling points and supported the idea of molecular aggregation. In 1820, he reported the first synthesis of carbon-chlorine compounds, including hexachloroethane and perchloroethylene, publishing his findings the next year. He also figured out the composition of chlorine clathrate hydrate, a substance discovered by Humphry Davy in 1810. Faraday is credited with discovering the laws of electrolysis and introducing key terms like anode, cathode, electrode, and ion—terms largely proposed by William Whewell.
Faraday reported findings that later became known as metallic nanoparticles. In 1857, he discovered that gold colloids had different optical properties compared to bulk gold metal. This observation likely marked the first time anyone saw the effects of quantum size, and it’s often seen as the beginning of nanoscience.
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His first recorded experiment was the construction of a voltaic pile, using British halfpenny coins and discs of sheet zinc, with pieces of paper moistened with salt water. With this pile he passed the electric current through a solution of sulfate of magnesia and succeeded in decomposing the chemical compound, as recorded in his first letter to Abbott, dated 12 July 1812.
In 1821, soon after Hans Christian Ørsted discovered electromagnetism, Davy and William Hyde Wollaston tried but failed to build an electric motor. Faraday, having discussed the problem with them, went on to create two devices he called "electromagnetic rotation." One of these, known as the homopolar motor, made a wire rotate around a magnet when powered by a battery; the wire extended into a pool of mercury where a magnet was placed. These experiments laid the groundwork for modern electromagnetic technology. Faraday excitedly published his findings without mentioning his work with Wollaston or Davy, leading to tension with Davy and possibly contributing to Faraday being assigned elsewhere, which kept him from electromagnetic research for years.
After his first discovery in 1821, Faraday worked in his lab exploring connections between electricity and magnetism. In 1824, he tried a circuit to see if a magnetic field could influence a current in a nearby wire, but found no connection. That experiment followed earlier work with light and magnets in 1821 that gave the same result. For the next seven years, he focused on making high-quality glass, especially a type called borosilicate of lead, which he'd use later in experiments linking light and magnetism. He also kept writing up his findings and corresponded with scientists he'd met during travels with Davy across Europe. Two years after Davy's death in 1831, Faraday began a major set of experiments that led to his discovery of electromagnetic induction. On 28 October 1831, he wrote in his diary, "making many experiments with the great magnet of the Royal Society."
Faraday discovered that when he passed electric current through one coil of wire wrapped around an iron ring, a second coil wrapped around the same ring would briefly produce its own current—this is called mutual inductance. That iron ring-coil setup is still shown today at the Royal Institution. Later, he found that moving a magnet through a loop of wire created electric current, and the same thing happened if the loop moved over a stationary magnet. These experiments proved that changing magnetic fields create electric fields. James Clerk Maxwell later described this mathematically as Faraday’s law, which became one of four Maxwell equations and led to field theory. Using these principles, Faraday built the first electric dynamo, the forerunner of today's power generators and motors.
In 1832, Faraday finished a set of experiments looking into the basic nature of electricity. He worked with static electricity, batteries, and what was called "animal electricity" to create effects like electrostatic attraction, electrolysis, and magnetism. At the time, most scientists believed there were different kinds of electricity, but Faraday argued otherwise. Instead, he suggested that all these phenomena came from one type of electricity. The differences, he said, were only in how much was flowing and how strong it was—current and voltage. That’s what created the various effects people observed.
Near the end of his career, Faraday suggested that electromagnetic forces reached into the empty space around a conductor. His fellow scientists dismissed the idea, and Faraday died without seeing it accepted. It would be another fifty years before electricity became part of everyday technology. In 1888, the Savoy Theatre in London became the first public building to shine with electric light, thanks to incandescent bulbs developed by Sir Joseph Swan. As recorded by the Royal Institution, “Faraday invented the generator in 1831 but it took nearly 50 years before all the technology, including Joseph Swan's incandescent filament light bulbs used here, came into common use.”
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In 1845, Faraday made a discovery that changed how scientists understood the interaction between materials and magnetic fields. He found that many substances naturally push away from a magnetic force, a phenomenon he named diamagnetism. This effect is weak, but it showed that not all materials respond to magnets in the same way. Faraday’s work opened new pathways for studying how electricity and magnetism connect, laying important groundwork for future scientific breakthroughs.
In September 1845, Faraday wrote in his notebook, "I have at last succeeded in illuminating a magnetic curve or line of force and in magnetising a ray of light." This moment marked his discovery of what is now called the Faraday effect, where the plane of polarization of linearly polarized light rotates when an external magnetic field is applied in the same direction as the light’s travel. It was a breakthrough that linked electricity, magnetism, and light in a way that would influence science for years to come.
In 1862, Faraday turned his attention to another mystery involving light and magnetism, using a spectroscope to investigate how spectral lines might shift under an applied magnetic field. The tools he had available, however, were not up to the task of making a clear determination. That work would later be taken up by Pieter Zeeman, who used improved equipment to study the same effect. In 1897, Zeeman published his findings and went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1902. In both his paper and his Nobel lecture, Zeeman acknowledged Faraday’s earlier efforts.
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In his work on static electricity, Faraday's ice pail experiment showed that charge sits only on the outside of a conductor, and external charge doesn’t affect what’s inside. That’s because the outer charges rearrange themselves so the internal electric fields cancel out. This protective effect is used today in something called a Faraday cage. In January 1836, Faraday built a wooden frame twelve feet square, set it on glass supports, added paper walls and wire mesh, then stepped inside and electrified it. When he stepped back out, he proved that electricity was a force, not the invisible fluid people thought it was.
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Michael Faraday had a deep and lasting connection to the Royal Institution of Great Britain. In 1821, he was named Assistant Superintendent of the House there. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1824. Then, in 1825, he became Director of the Laboratory at the Royal Institution. Six years later, in 1833, he took on the role of the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the institution. This position was created for him by John 'Mad Jack' Fuller, who sponsored and mentored him. Faraday held the professorship for life, without having to give lectures.
Faraday’s work at the Royal Institution went far beyond his scientific studies into electricity and magnetism. He also took on important service projects for both private companies and the government. In 1846, he helped produce a detailed report on a deadly explosion at a coal mine in County Durham, working with geologist Charles Lyell. Their investigation showed that coal dust had made the blast worse, marking the first time such a link was made. Faraday demonstrated how proper ventilation could prevent these disasters. The findings were ignored for more than sixty years, until another terrible accident in 1913. He also worked with engineers from Chance Brothers to make high-quality optical glass for lighthouses.
Faraday worked on important projects related to maritime safety, including building and running lighthouses and preventing ship hulls from corroding. His workshop is still standing at Trinity Buoy Wharf, next to the Chain and Buoy Store, right beside London’s only lighthouse. There, he did early work with electric lighting for lighthouses.
Faraday wasn’t just focused on science in the lab—he also cared deeply about public health and environmental issues. He looked into industrial pollution at Swansea and was asked for his opinion on air quality at the Royal Mint. In July 1855, he wrote a letter to The Times about the terrible state of the River Thames. His words led to a widely shared cartoon in Punch, highlighting the growing concern over the river’s condition.
Faraday played a key role in organizing the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, London, helping to plan and judge the displays. He also gave advice on preserving art at the National Gallery and served on the National Gallery Site Commission in 1857. In education, he lectured at the Royal Institution in 1854 and later spoke before a Public Schools Commission in 1862 about the state of schooling in Britain. Faraday was critical of the public’s interest in phenomena like table-turning, mesmerism, and seances, and he used these moments to criticize both the public and the nation's educational system.
Before delivering his famous Christmas lectures, Faraday gave chemistry talks for the City Philosophical Society between 1816 and 1818. He did this to improve his speaking skills. These were the only lectures he presented outside of the Royal Institution.
Between 1825 and 1860, Faraday shaped how science was shared with the public through his work at the Royal Institution in London. He founded the Friday Evening Discourses in 1825, where researchers presented their latest findings to members, and launched a series of Christmas lectures for young people that continue today. These events were important social occasions among London's elite, driven by Faraday's gift for captivating storytelling. In letters to his friend Benjamin Abbott, he described the art of lecturing, writing, "a flame should be lighted at the commencement and kept alive with unremitting splendour to the end." His lectures blended joy and philosophy; he filled soap bubbles with gases to test magnetism, and urged audiences to think deeply, as when he asked, "you know very well that ice floats upon water ... Why does the ice float? Think of that, and philosophise." Topics ranged across chemistry and electricity, including titles such as The Chemical History of a Candle and First Principles of Electricity.
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