Michael Faraday was born in Newington Butts, near London, in 1791. His father was a blacksmith but he found himself apprenticed to a bookbinder and through his work there he developed an interest in books, particularly science books. When he was in his early twenties he secured a job with the Cornish chemist and pioneering scientist, Humphrey Davy, whom he subsequently accompanied on European tour, during the course of which they met many leading scientists of the day. In 1827, now aged thirty-six he succeeded Davy as professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution. Although he subsequently gained respect for a great many papers and investigations, it was his Experimental Researches on Electricity that established his enduring reputation. He received a State Pension in 1835 and seven years before his death, in 1868, he was given a house in Hampton Court. An influential advocate of the use of electricity in lighthouses in the early 1860s it was entirely appropriate, if not now a little confusing, that Faraday Road, leading to the erstwhile Electric Power station at Cattedown, should have been named in his honour.
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