PREFACE TO VOLUME I 



THE University of Cambridge has a deep interest both in the Author and 

 in the Editor of the electrical investigations now presented in final form in 

 this volume. 



Henry Cavendish matriculated in the University on 18 Dec. 1749, 

 from Hackney School. According to records preserved at Peterhouse he 

 commenced residence there on 24 Nov. 1749, and resided very regularly 

 and constantly as a Fellow-Commoner until 23 Feb. 1753, when he left 

 without proceeding to a degree. Two others of the Cavendish family were 

 at Peterhouse at the same time; Henry's younger brother Frederick who 

 was entered 10 April, 1751, and also left without taking his degree; and 

 his cousin Lord John Cavendish, fourth son of the Duke of Devonshire, 

 afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was entered 21 Feb. 1750 

 and became M.A. in 1753. Among his contemporaries at Peterhouse, then 

 as now a small society, were the Earl of Euston, afterwards as Duke of 

 Grafton prominent in the writings of Junius, Gray the poet and also Mason*, 

 and the Greek critic Markland, who was Senior Fellow of the College at 

 the time and always in residence. 



These details are taken from a statement contributed in 1851 to 

 Dr G. Wilson's Life of Cavendish^ by Prof. F. Fuller, then Fellow and 

 Tutor of Peterhouse. 



James Clerk Maxwell graduated at Cambridge in Jan. 1854. After two 

 years' resident activity at Cambridge, including election to a Fellowship at 

 Trinity College, he was appointed in April, 1856 to the Chair of Natural 

 Philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen. There he worked until 1860, 

 when on the fusion of the two Aberdeen Universities he became Professor 

 of Natural Philosophy in King's College, London. He resigned that Chair 

 at Easter, 1865, left London the following year and settled down at his 

 inherited home at Glenlair near Dalbeattie in Galloway. To quote his own 

 words of Feb. 1866 (Life, 1882, by L. Campbell and W. Garnett, p. 344) : 

 " I have now my time fully occupied with experiments and speculations 

 of a physical kind, which I could not undertake so long as I had public 

 duties." The result has contributed, more than any other cause, to the 

 modern revolution in the ideas and methods of physical science. 



In October, 1870 William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, who had 

 graduated as second wrangler and first Smith's Prizeman in Mathematics 

 and a first class in Classics in 1829, and was elected in 1861 Chancellor of 



* Mason was tutor to Lord John Cavendish, but was of Pembroke College, having 

 previously been of St John's. 



t Cf. also The Cavendish Family by F. Bickley (1911), pp. 197-208. 



