James Clerk Maxwell,
Scottish physicist, was born with an enquiring mind. Dissatisfied with the toys he was given, the youngster made his own scientific toys at the age of 8! In 1846, when Maxwell was 15, he delivered his first scientific paper. He was professor of natural philosophy at Aberdeen in 1856 and in 1871 he was appointed as the first professor of experimental physics at Cambridge University. His best know work is a treatise on electricity and magnetism published in 1873. He made the discovery that founded the electromagnetic theory of light. It is to Maxwell's electrical researches that the advent of wireless is due. He died in 1879 at the age of 48. *

Thomas Alva Edison,
Best known of American inventive geniuses, Thomas Edison was born in 1847 and led an adventurous boyhood before he became a telegraph operator and interested himself in electrical problems. In 1897 he set up an elaborate laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Edison's many inventions include the phonograph, an improved printing telegraph, a system of duplex telegraphy which was quickly altered into quadruplex and sextuplex transmission, and the first commercially usable incandescent lamp in 1879. Commercial production of lamps started the following year. Before he died in 1931, Thomas Alva Edison had patented 1300 inventions. *

Benjamin Franklin,
F.R.S., was called "the first civilised American". He was a statesman, philosopher, scientific experimenter and one of the framers of the American Constitution. Born in Boston in 1706, his father, "a maker of soap and candles", apprenticed him to a printer. In his twenties Franklin was an outstanding swimmer. Public attention was first drawn to him when he published "Poor Richard's Almanac", a book of potted philosophy. Franklin was widely travelled and represented several of the American States in London (today he would be known as an Agent-General or High Commissioner). While in London he did everything in his power to stop the drift to war which led to American Independence. Benjamin Franklin is remembered by the electrical world for his research into lighting. He was the first to recognise that lightning is an electrical charge. During a thunderstorm in 1752 he flew a kite and managed to produce sparks from a key attached to its string (an experiment which one would be foolhardy to reproduce). From his researches Franklin was able to devise a lightning rod or lightning conductor, which is a form of shielding from lightning. Benjamin Franklin, a great American, died at the age of 84. *

James Watt,
FRS, inventor of the modern steam-condensing engine, was born in 1736. His inventions improving steam engines were patented over a period of fifteen years starting in 1769. In 1780 he patented a letter-copying machine which did not become obsolete until a century later. Watt, in 1814, was made a foreign associate of the French Academy. He died in 1819. Thermal power stations continue to use the principles of the steam engine evolved by Watt and his immortality is assured by his name being used for the electric unit of energy. *

Joseph Wilson Swan,
was born in County Durham in 1828. Apprenticed to a druggist he soon took an interest in the then new science of photography. In 1864 he patented the first commercially practicable process for carbon printing in photography. In 1879 Swan patented bromide paper (used mainly for enlarging or projection printing in photography.) Although he had produced a form of carbon filament lamp in 1860 it failed to incandesce but only glowed red. It was not until he devised a carbon filament using cotton that he was able to produce an incandescent electric lamp; that was 1878. Swan's first lamp, unlike Edison's could not be used commercially. He was knighted in 1904 and died ten years later. *

Irvin Langmuir
was a U.S. scientist who received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1932. Born in Brooklyn in 1881 he received his Ph.D. in 1906 at the University of Gottingen (Germany). In 1909 he joined the General Electric research laboratory in Schenectady, N.Y. He formulated theories of atomic structure and opened new fields in colloid and biochemistry through his work on molecular films. In physics he pioneered work in electrical discharges in gases, in electron emission, and in the development of the mercury condensation vacuum pump. The work of Langmuir and his associates led, in 1946, to the discovery of techniques of transforming, by cloud seeding, super-cooled clouds into ice crystals. Of his work, Dr. Langmuir once said, "Whatever has come in industrial applications has come incidentally from experiments followed for their interest alone" Langmuir died in 1957. *

Michael Faraday,
FRS, was possibly the greatest experimental genius that the world has ever know. Born in 1791, the son of a blacksmith, at 12 years of age he was apprenticed to a bookbinder. He worked at this trade until 1813 when he became laboratory assistant to Sir Humphrey Davy, the inventor of the miners' safety lamp. In 1827 Faraday succeeded Sir Humphrey at the Royal Institution and was made professor of chemistry in 1833. Michael Faraday founded the science of electromagnetism and his discoveries form the basis of our modern electrical industry. To all his other great gifts he added that of being able to express the results of both his experiments and his thoughts in clear simple language. He was a popular lecturer, able to arouse enthusiasm in his audience. He died in 1867. *

William Thomson Kelvin,
P.C., O.M., G.C.V.O, FRS (1824 - 1907) Born in Belfast, he was, at 22 years of age, appointed professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow. Kelvin is best remembered for his work in the field of electricity, particularly in its application to submarine telegraphy. Kelvin invented a sounding apparatus with which the depth could be accurately measured in either shallow or deep water. During his lifetime, Lord Kelvin published more than 300 original papers dealing with almost every branch of physical science. In 1866 he was knighted and in 1890 was made president of the Royal Society. Raised to the peerage, he became Baron Kelvin of Largs in 1892, and in 1902 was further honoured with the Order of Merit. He died in 1907 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. *

Alessandro Volta
(1745 - 1827), was an Italian physicist. He was professor at both Como and Pavia. Working on the results of Galvani's experiments Volta found that the essential thing in producing an electric current was contact of dissimilar metals. This led him to the invention of the voltaic pile, the first instrument for producing an electric current. He thereby laid the foundations of Electrochemistry. Such was his fame that in 1801 he was summoned to Paris by Napoleon who had a special medal struck in Volta's honour. The world has honoured Volta by naming the unit of electric potential - the volt - after him. *

Andre Marie Ampere
(1775 - 1836) was the first to propound the Electro-dynamic theory. He was a French mathematician who devoted himself to the study of electricity and magnetism. A permanent memorial to Ampere is the use of his name for the unit of electric current. *

Georg Simon Ohm,
German mathematician and physicist, was born in Bavaria in 1787. He was a college teacher in Cologne when in 1827 he published "The Galvanic Circuit Investigated mathematically" in which he propounded the theory now known as Ohm's Law. His theories were coldly received by German scientists and, deeply hurt, Ohm resigned his position in Cologne. Six years later he resumed lecturing; this time at Nuremburg Polytech. Ohm's research was recognised in England - he was awarded the Copley Medal in 1841 and made a foreign member of the Royal Society in 1842. Georg Ohm was professor of physics at Munich when he died in 1854. His name has been given to the unit of electrical resistance. *

Guglielmo Marconi
was born in 1874 and became an electrical engineer celebrated for his development of wireless telegraphy. With homemade apparatus he sent long wave signals over a distance of one mile as early as 1895. Feeling that England offered better facilities for his experiments, he left Italy in 1896, and in 1897 he founded the Marconi Company. On December 12, 1901, he succeeded in transmitting and receiving the first Trans-Atlantic wireless signals. Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1909 and in 1929 the King of Italy made him a Marquis. The Marchese Guglielmo Marconi died in England in 1937 and, in accordance with his wishes his body was buried in his native Italy. *