William Sturgeon

William Sturgeon
William Sturgeon
Born 22 May 1783
Whittington, Lancashire
Died 4 December 1850(1850-12-04) (aged 67)
Prestwich, Lancashire
Nationality English
Known for electromagnet and electro motor
Scientific career
Fields physics
Institutions electromagnets
Influences Charles Grafton Page
Influenced Charles Grafton Page
The first artificial electromagnet, invented by Sturgeon in 1824. Sturgeon`s original drawing from his 1824 paper to the British Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. The magnet was made of 18 turns of bare copper wire (insulated wire had not yet been invented).[1]

William Sturgeon (22 May 1783 – 4 December 1850) was an English physicist and inventor who made the first electromagnets, and invented the first practical English electric motor.

Early life

Sturgeon was born on 22 May 1783 in Whittington, near Carnforth, Lancashire, and became apprenticed to a shoemaker.

Career

Sturgeon joined the army in 1802 and taught himself mathematics and physics. In 1824 he became Lecturer in Science and Philosophy at the East India Company's Military Seminary at Addiscombe, Surrey, and in the following year he exhibited his first electromagnet.[2] He displayed its power by lifting nine pounds with a seven-ounce piece of iron wrapped with wire through which a current from a single battery was sent.

In 1832 he was appointed to the lecturing staff of the Adelaide Gallery of Practical Science in London, where he first demonstrated the DC electric motor incorporating a commutator.

In 1836 he established the journal Annals of Electricity, Magnetism and Chemistry, and in the same year he invented a galvanometer.[2]

Sturgeon was a close associate of John Peter Gassiot and Charles Vincent Walker, and the three were instrumental in founding the London Electrical Society in 1837.[3]

In 1840 he became superintendent of the Royal Victoria Gallery of Practical Science in Manchester. He formed a close social circle with John Davies, one of the Gallery's promoters, and Davies's student James Prescott Joule, a circle that eventually extended to include Edward William Binney and the surgeon John Leigh.[4] The Gallery closed in 1842, and he earned a living by lecturing and demonstrating.

Death and burial

Sturgeon died in Prestwich in Greater Manchester on 4 December 1850.[2] He is buried there, in the churchyard of the St Mary the Virgin: he is identified on his grave slab as "William Sturgeon – The Electrician".

References

  1. ↑ Thompson, Sylvanus P. (1891). Lectures on the Electromagnet. New York: W. J. Johnson Co. pp. 17–19.
  2. 1 2 3 Gee 2004.
  3. ↑ Harrison, W. J.; Morus, Frank Iwan Rhys (revised) (2004). "Gassiot, John Peter (1797–1877)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10439. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ↑ Kargon 1977, pp. 38-40.

Bibliography

  • Gee, William; James, Frank A. J. L. (revised) (2004). "Sturgeon, William (1783–1850)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26748. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • Kargon, R. H. (1977). Science in Victorian Manchester: enterprise and expertise. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-1969-5.
  • Vibart, H. M. (1894). Addiscombe: its heroes and men of note. Westminster: Archibald Constable. pp. 77–80.

See also

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