Weston’s cell

Technological transitions are fascinating to watch, even when you are in the middle of them. The latest is one that is viewed by some chemists with alarm: the drive to ‘electrify everything’. But the trend is nothing new and a British-American chemist is a forgotten figure from its early days.

Edward Weston grew up in Wolverhampton, UK. He would later reminisce about an incident that took place around 1857, when he was seven years old. Visiting a chemist’s shop, he spotted a strange machine consisting of a large red magnet, a large crank handle, and coils of copper wire linked to two brass cylinders. The man behind the counter told him to grasp the cylinders and then proceeded to turn the handle. The electric shock caused the boy to scream in surprise and delight; he then demanded that the man do it again. And again. And again.

If the story may be a later embellishment there is no question that Weston had an unusual love and aptitude for tinkering. He began reading science books at age nine and became a huge admirer of Michael Faraday, reproducing his experiments in a home laboratory. He also spent long hours exploring the many factories across the city. It seems extraordinary that a boy, barely a teenager, could enter a gas works or steel foundry to watch and ask questions of the workmen. But the result was that he developed an almost innate familiarity with the workings of industrial chemistry.