MICHAEL FARADY - BORN INTO POVERTY - BECAME WORLD RENOWNED SCIENTIST

Michael Faraday who was born into poverty, raised in poverty later rose to stardom by becoming world renowned scientist through responsibility and devoutness to a cause. He became one of the most prolific scientists of the 19th century the moment his sight were fixed on his purpose. It was his discoveries in electromagnetic induction and the laws of electrolysis that birthed electricity we all have today. This of course is one of the biggest breakthrough and invention the world has ever known.

He had speech defect as a teenage boy
Michael Faraday was born on 22 September 1791 in south London. One of his nephews tells the following tale of his boyhood. He was at a dame's school; and had some defect in his speech or because he was too young to articulate words properly, he pronounced his elder brother's name “Wobert." The harsh schoolmistress, bent on curing the defect by personal chastisement, sent the aforesaid " Wobert " out with a halfpenny to get a cane, that young Michael might be duly flogged. But this refinement of cruelty reacted on itself ; for Robert, boiling with indignation, pitched the halfpenny over a wall, and went home to tell his mother, who promptly came down to the scene of action and removed both boys from the school. From the age of five to thirteen Michael lived at Jacob's Well Mews, spending his out-of -school hours at home. In 1804 he went on trial for twelve months as errand-boy
to a bookseller. After the year of trial, Michael Faraday was formally apprenticed to learn the arts of bookbinder, stationer, and bookseller to Mr. Riebau.

He became an errand boy
Young Michael Faraday received only primary school education but when he was 14, he was officially apprenticed to a local bookbinder and it was his duty to carry round the newspapers in the morning. He was very particular on Sunday mornings to take them round early, that he might complete his work in time to go with his parents to church. During the next seven years, educated himself by spending his little penny money to buy books and reading them on a wide range of scientific subjects. To earn money for the family, the little teenage boy took responsibility and started working as a delivery boy for a bookshop.

He became a lover of books
Michael Faraday was eager to learn more about the world; he did not restrict himself to binding the shop’s books. After working hard each day, he spent his free time reading the books which he had bound or bought. Gradually, he found he was reading more and more about science. Two books in particular captivated him: The Encyclopedia Britannica – his source for electrical knowledge and much more. Conversations on Chemistry – 600 pages of chemistry for ordinary people written by Jane Marcet. According to the book “The Electric Life of Michael Faraday, the author credited Faraday as one of the most gifted and intuitive experimentalist the world has ever seen

He became so fascinated that he started spending part of his meager pay on chemicals and apparatus to confirm the truth of what he was reading. As he learned more about science, he heard that the well-known scientist John Tatum was going to give a series of public lectures on natural philosophy (physics). To attend the lectures the fee would be one shilling – too much for Michael Faraday. His older brother, a blacksmith, impressed by his brother’s growing devotion to science, gave him the shilling he needed. Faraday’s father, James was so poor and to better his life and family applied as an apprentice to the village blacksmith and after years of apprenticeship became a blacksmith with poor health. Before marriage, his mother had been a servant. The family lived in a degree of poverty.

These seminars changed his life and Faraday rose to prominence
Faraday’s education took another step upward when William Dance, a customer of the bookshop, asked if he would like tickets to hear Sir Humphry Davy lecturing at the Royal Institution. Sir Humphry Davy was one of the most famous scientists in the world. Faraday jumped at the chance and attended four lectures about one of the newest problems in chemistry – defining acidity. He watched Davy perform experiments at the lectures. This was the world he wanted to live in, he told himself. He took notes and then made so many additions to the notes that he produced a 300 page handwritten book, which he bound and sent to Davy as a tribute. Faraday subsequently wrote to Davy asking for a job as his assistant. Davy turned him down but in 1813 appointed him to the job of chemical assistant at the Royal Institution. Faraday steadily rose to prominence. Michael Faraday, who came from a very poor family, became one of the greatest scientists in history. His achievement was remarkable in a time when science was the preserve of people born into privileged families. The unit of electrical capacitance is named the farad in his honor, with the symbol F.

Faraday became an adviser to British Government
When asked by the British government to advice on the production of chemical weapons for use in the Crimean War (1853–1856), Faraday refused to participate citing ethical reasons

Faraday married Sarah Barnard on 12 June 1821.They met through their families at the Sandemanian church, and he confessed his faith to the Sandemanian congregation the month after they were married. They had no children. Faraday was a devout Christian. Well after his marriage, he served as deacon and for two terms as an elder in the meeting house of his youth.

In June 1832, the University of Oxford granted Faraday a Doctor of Civil Law degree (honorary). During his lifetime, he was offered a knighthood in recognition for his services to science, which he turned down on religious grounds, believing that it was against the word of the Bible to accumulate riches and pursue worldly reward, and stating that he preferred to remain "plain Mr. Faraday to the end". He twice refused to become President of the Royal Society. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1838, and was one of eight foreign members elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1844.

World acclaimed scientist
Faraday invented an early form of what was to become the Bunsen burner, which is in practical use in science laboratories around the world as a convenient source of heat. Faraday worked extensively in the field of chemistry, discovering chemical substances such as benzene (which he called bicarburet of hydrogen) and liquefying gases such as chlorine. The liquefying of gases helped to establish that gases are the vapours of liquids possessing a very low boiling point and gave a more solid basis to the concept of molecular aggregation. In 1820 Faraday reported the first synthesis of compounds made from carbon and chlorine, C2Cl6 and C2Cl4, and published his results the following year. Faraday also determined the composition of the chlorine clathrate hydrate, which had been discovered by Humphry Davy in 1810. Faraday is also responsible for discovering the laws of electrolysis, and for popularizing terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion, terms proposed in large part by William Whewell.
Faraday was the first to report what later came to be called metallic nanoparticles. In 1847 he discovered that the optical properties of gold colloids differed from those of the corresponding bulk metal. This was probably the first reported observation of the effects of quantum size, and might be considered to be the birth of nanoscience.

His twenties and thirties 

Faraday began work at the Royal Institution of Great Britain at the age of 21 on March 1, 1813. In 1816, aged 24, Faraday gave his first ever lecture, on the properties of matter, to the City Philosophical Society. And he published his first ever academic paper, discussing his analysis of calcium hydroxide, in the Quarterly Journal of Science. In 1821, aged 29, he was promoted to be Superintendent of House and Laboratory of the Royal Institution. In 1824, aged 32, he was elected to the Royal Society. This was recognition that he had become a notable scientist in his own right. In 1825, aged 33, he became Director of the Royal Institution’s Laboratory. In 1833, aged 41, he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He held this position for the rest of his life. In 1848, aged 54, and again in 1858 he was offered the Presidency of the Royal Society, but he turned it down.


It is worth saying that the parallels in the lives of Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry are rather striking. Both were born in poverty; had fathers who often could not work because of ill-health; became apprentices; were inspired to become scientists by reading particular books; were devoutly religious; became laboratory assistants; their greatest contributions were made in the same scientific era in the field of electrical science; and both have an SI unit named in their honor. Faraday died at his house at Hampton Court  on 25 August 1867, aged 75

Sources: Faraday, Michael (1827). Chemical Manipulation, Being Instructions to Students in Chemistry. John Murray. 2nd ed. 1830 

Faraday, Michael (1839). Experiential Researches in Electricity, vols i and ii. Richard and John Edward Taylor.; vol. iii. Richard Taylor and William Francis, 1855