Michael Faraday had several strikes against him. He grew up poor and his Christianity was of an obscure sect in a class conscious 19th century Britain. Yet he was able to work and his research advanced human knowledge in the fields of electricity and magnetism. How is it that such stories happen in only a few places and times in the world. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Regular readers will sense that I really like this 1991 British stamp issue. A few weeks ago I covered this stamp on Charles Babbage,the proto computer inventor. See https://the-philatelist.com/2019/05/15/great-britain-1991-remembering-one-of-those-great-19th-century-polymaths/ . Being a fairly ignorant American, whose knowledge of electricity consists of visions of Ben Franklin flying a kite, I am presented with an opportunity to expand my knowledge with what Britain was up to in the field. Mr. Faraday is presented in a smoking jacket with a lightbulb going off in his head like when I figure out what a stamp is talking about. Bringing me in an expanding my mind. Stamp making at it’s best.
Todays stamp is issue A393, a 22 pence stamp issued by Great Britain on March 5th, 1991. It was a four stamp issue remembering prominent British scientists. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents.
Michael Faraday grew up poor in an outer suburb of London in a family that practiced the small Glassite offshoot of the Church of Scotland. He was able as a teenager to get an apprenticeship at a bookseller. This gave him access to books and to other people who read them. Contacts from the store got him invited to science lectures held at the Royal Institution. The RI had been founded in 1799 with the purpose of extending scientific research to benefit the masses. Hearing a lecture from chemist Humphry Davy, he sent him a 300 page report on what he heard. Impressed, Davy hired him as an assistant and his work was rewarded by an appointment of his own at the Royal Institution. In English society this did not quite make Faraday a gentleman. He was quite offended to still have to function as Davy’s valet on a European tour. A real gentleman would not have made such a production out of the perceived slight.
Anyway. Faraday made many advancements including early insights in how magnetic fields work and how electricity is conducted. He also built the first electric generator and bunson burner. I assume Mr. Bunson may argue with that last one. He was also much rewarded. He turned down a Knighthood based on the precepts of the Glassite sect. He did accept from Prince Consort Albert a Grace and Favor country house. The house was owned by Prince Albert, but given rent and expense free as a thanks for service to the Empire. One service he was not willing to provide the Empire was work on chemical weapons during the Crimean War. He explained his religion based objections and the house nor the position at the RI was removed from him. His Glasite sect of Christianity died out in the late 20th century.
One can understand what good a properly functioning Royal Institution can do for a nation. It still exists in it’s original and now quite valuable building in London. It still exists but had a brush with modernity recently. The leader was a female descendant of an Austrian electrician and an exotic dancer. Her idea to advance the institution was to spend 25 million pounds to renovate the building so an upscale public nightclub for the glitterati was a part of it. It bombed and the institution was left in debt. An anonymous donation prevented the building from having to be sold. When she was removed, the lady, a Countess, sued, claiming she was discriminated against. Well the people that appointed her should have used more discretion. Any way the woman’s science work is in the field of dementia. So perhaps we can all forget. No wonder the last Nobel Laureate from the RI was born way back in 1933.
Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering what modern institutions that actually advance knowledge look like today. The RI seems moribund, China is littered with scientific institutions with no decernable output, and silcon valley in the USA hasn’t been heard much from lately. Wonder what that Tesla guy is up to? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.