January 1962
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8 Reads
Henry Cavendish (Nice, 10 October 1731–London, 28 February 1810), the elder of two sons of Lord Charles Cavendish, the fifth son of the second Duke of Devonshire, was born in Nice, where his mother, the fourth daughter of Henry Duke of Kent, was then living on account of poor health. She died when Henry was only two years of age. He was at first educated in a private school in Hackney, then went in 1749 to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, leaving without a degree (perhaps on religious grounds) early in 1753. It is said that his family wished him to take part in public life. His father was not rich for a nobleman in his position but provided for his son with as much as he could afford. After a tour of the Continent with his brother, Cavendish lived in London with his father until the latter’s death in 1783. His father carried out important research in heat, electricity, and magnetism, and his son assisted him. Much of his chemical and electrical work was done in this period. Thomson1 says that when he lived with his father in Great Marlborough Street, Cavendish’s ‘apartments were a set of stables, fitted up for his accommodation’, but Maxwell2 points out that a room in which Cavendish carried out his early electrical experiments was 14 ft. high. He became F.R.S. in 1760 but his first published paper is in the Philosophical Transactions in 1766. He later became very rich (from the bequest of which of his relatives is not clear), but he retained the frugal habits of his early life.