vi WORK AT MANCHESTER 133 



with the chairman, Sir Henry Holland (see p. 41), 

 and with old Sergeant Anderson, Faraday's laboratory 

 assistant. 1 Mr. Brothers, of Manchester, who was 

 the first photographer to use the magnesium light 

 for portraiture, helped me. 



In the autumn of 1864, I delivered the first of the 

 public lectures at the meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at Bath on the " Chemical Action of Light," Sir 

 Charles Lyell being the President of the Association ; 

 I also photographed him by means of burning mag- 

 nesium. My lecture was on the Friday evening, and 

 a singular incident occurred to me. Just before my 

 lecture, I was collecting my thoughts and soothing 

 my nerves by smoking a cigar at the stage-door of the 

 theatre in which the lecture was to be delivered, when up 

 came a military-looking man, and was for pushing past 

 me. I said : " You cannot come in this way ; you must 

 pass in by the ordinary entrance." He replied : " Who 

 are you ? " I said : " Well, I'm the lecturer." " Oh, I 

 daresay," he continued ; "come, clear out." To which 

 I replied : "It is you that will have to clear out." 

 "Sir," said he, "do you mean to insult me?" "I 

 have no such intention," I added ; " but one thing is 

 certain you don't come in here " ; and not being the 

 bigger man he did not attempt to force his way in, but 

 looking daggers at me said : " You perhaps don't 



1 Anderson was the sole assistant to Faraday, and, of course, was 

 utterly uneducated in scientific matters ; but he could obey orders, which 

 is not always a characteristic of an educated man. One day Anderson 

 was told by Faraday to keep stirring a pot containing some chemicals 

 over a fire until he returned, Faraday being in the habit of going upstairs 

 to tea in his rooms and coming down directly afterwards to work in the 

 laboratory during the evening. For some reason he was prevented from 

 coming down again and forgot that he had told Anderson to watch the 

 pot. On coming down the next morning he found Anderson still stirring 

 the pot, having been at it the whole night and thus carrying out the order 

 which was given him. 



