OBITUARY NOTICES OF FELLOWS DECEASED. 



Mt, 1 to 12 (1791 to 1804). ' 

 Michael Faraday* was born in the woi king class, of a very religious family. 

 For two generations at least those who preceded him shared the extreme 

 views in favour of toleration and disestablishment which caused, first, the de- 

 position of the Rev. John Glas, and afterwards the secession of his son-in- 

 law, R. Sandeman, from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. That the re- 

 vealed will of Christ should be the supreme and only law, not only in all 

 church questions, but in every thought and word and deed, was the belief of 

 those who were nearest to Faraday in his infancy ; and this he held through- 

 out his life, as though it had been a special revelation to himself. 



His father, James, was the third of ten children born at Clapham in 

 Yorkshire. He was a blacksmith ; his eldest brother worked as slater, 

 grocer, and millowner, another brother was a farmer, another a packer, an- 

 other a shopkeeper, and the youngest a shoemaker. Another of the brothers 

 died young, in the year Michael was born ; and a letter from the mother of 

 the young man shows the strength of the religious feeling in mother and son. 



When twenty-five, in 1786, Jame^ Faraday married Margaret Hastwell, 

 daughter of a farmer near Kirkby Stephen. Soon after their marriage they 

 came to Newington in Surrey, where Michael, their third child, was born, 

 September 22, 1/91, in a house probably long since pulled down. The 

 father obtained work at Boyd's, in Welbeck Street ; and when Michael was 

 about five years old, after living a short time in Gilbert Street, they removed 

 to rooms over a coach-house in Jacob's Well Mews, Charles Street, Man- 

 chester Square. The home of Michael Faraday was in these mews for nearly 

 ten years ; and his family remained there until 1809, when they moved 

 to 18 Weymouth Street. 



Faraday himself has pointed out where he played at marbles in Spanish 

 Place, and where, years later, he took care of his little sister in Manchester 

 Square. He says, " My education was of the most ordinary description, 

 consisting of little more than the rudiments of reading, writing, and arith- 

 metic at a common day-school. My hours out of school were passed at 

 home and in the streets." 



Only a few yards off was a bookseller's shop, No. 2 Biandford Street ; 

 there, as a boy of thirteen, in 1804, he went on trial for a year to Mr. 

 George Riebau. Once when walking with a niece they passed a little 

 news-boy, when he said, " I always feel a tenderness for those boys, because 

 I once carried newspapers myself." 



* An account of " Faraday as a Discoverer " having been already given to the world 

 by one eminently qualified for the task, it has been deemed advisable in this place to 

 give a narrative of the chief events of his personal history, with such indications of his 

 character and opinions as may be read in his written correspondence and private 

 memorials. This service has been kindly rendered by Dr. Bence Jones, F.E.S., Secre- 

 tary to the Eoyal Institution, the devoted friend of Faraday, in whose hands have been 

 placed the letters and manuscripts from which the substance, and, for the most part, the 

 words of the present notice have been taken.— W. S., Sec. R.S. 



vol. xvii. a 



