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Silvanus Phillips Thompson

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"SILVANUS PHILLIPS THOMPSON (1851-1916), English physicist, was born at York June 19 1851, and educated at a school in Yorkshire belonging to the Society of Friends, of which body he was a lifelong member. He went later to the Royal School of Mines, having previously received a B.A. at London University when he was only eighteen. He obtained a B.Sc. from London University in 1875 with high honours and a D.Sc. in 1878, when he became professor of experimental physics in University College, Bristol. There he began his lectures on electrical science which brought him invitations to lecture all over the United Kingdom and made him a power in both the scientific and industrial worlds. In 1881 appeared his Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism, twice reprinted in 1882 and 16 times in the ensuing 12 years. A new edition was called for even as late as 1914. Two other courses of lectures were published in volume form, Dynamo-Electric Machinery (1882), and The Electro-magnet and Electromagnetic Mechanism (1891). By that time he had removed to London, becoming professor of Physics in the City and Guilds of London Technical College, Finsbury, in 1885 and subsequently its principal. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1889. In his desire to bring science home to the imperfectly educated he published anonymously Calculus made Easy by " F.R.S." (1910), written in colloquial style. His deep interest in religion, which led to his recognition in 1903 as a minister of the Society of Friends, inspired The Quest of Truth (1915) and a posthumous work A Not Impossible Religion (1918). He also published biographies of Reis, Faraday and Kelvin. He died in London June 12 1916.

See Silvanus Phillips Thompson, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., by his wife and daughter (1920).