James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79)

Scottish physicist. Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge, 1855. Professor of natural philosophy, King’s College, London, 1860–5. Member of the newly formed electrical standards committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1862. Superintended the building of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge; first professor of experimental physics, University of Cambridge, 1871. Wrote papers on colour vision, the kinetic theory of gases, electricity, and magnetism. FRS 1861.