1John Ashburner2 to Faraday   3 January 1837

20 Edwards Street | 3 January: 1837.

Dear Sir,

I have delayed a reply to your enquiries in the hope that I might be able to find among my papers of past years, some Memoranda respecting the Electrical Machine. I have not been successful in my search.

All I know about the machine is that I one day in 1818 went into Stewart's Auction Room3 in Piccadilly to buy some apparatus at a sale of the effects of the late G.J. Singer4, who was the author of a Book on Electricity5 and a lecturer on the subject. I had no idea of purchasing the machine, but as the auctioneer was hovering about ú30, I bid, and it became mine for ú32. The story told about it was that Garnerin6, the Aeronaut had brought it from Paris, that he had failed in attracting much notice to it while it was at Wigley's Rooms in Spring Gardens, and that finally he had sold it to Mr Singer for ú100. It was said that Garnerin had bought the machine at Paris soon after the period of the hundred days: - that originally it had been in the possession of Napoleon, who had ordered three of the same size to be constructed; two of which he had presented to public Institutions. When I was in Paris, I enquired about these two, and saw one the pattern of my own at the Ecole de Medicine: - I forget what I learned about the other; but it was certainly corroboration of the tale.

The History of the Machine after it came into my possession is shortly this. I happened to be Physician to the Parochial Infirmary of St. Pancras. I happened to be placed at the Westminster Dispensary among people who were asserting great cures by Electricity. I quietly moved my Machine to St Pancras Infirmary - where during the course of a year I submitted great numbers of cases of Rheumatism and of chronic disorders of liver and other organs to the influence of Electricity. Except in five cases of amenorrhoea, in one of which great mischief was produced by a strong Leyden bottle shock, I met with no result worth noticing. The number of subjects experimented upon I have no note but I think it must have exceeded five hundred. Subsequently the Machine was moved to the Middlesex Hospital where I lectured on Chemistry, and where I made use of it for illustrations. Going away to India in 1822 I gave a great part of the apparatus I possessed at the Hospital to my successor Mr John Wood7, and among other things a very large cylinder machine which had been the property of Mr George Cadogan Morgan8, author of an early work of two volumes on Electricity9. Thinking that the large Napoleon Plate Machine should be deposited with some public body, I desired my Brass Turner Mr Pouser10 to see that it was carefully conveyed to the Royal Institution with my compliments. I am very proud that accident has made me the means of placing in your power an instrument which has been made useful to science, and those who regard curiosities, among these affairs, will not think the less of this machine for having been in the possession of Napoleon.

I am, Dear Sir, | Your obedient servant, | John Ashburner

M. Faraday Esq. LLD &c &c

John Ashburner (1793-1878, B1). Physician.
Mounted opposite Faraday (1833a), ERE3, 290 where Faraday described the machine discussed in this letter. The machine was 50 inches in diameter and it is probably that portrayed standing behind Faraday in plate 1.
William Stewart. Auctioneer and bookseller of 194 Piccadilly. 1818 POD.
George John Singer (1786-1817, DNB). Writer on electricity.
Singer (1814).
Either André Jacques Garnerin (1769-1823, DBF) or Jean Baptiste Garnerin (1766-1849, DBF). Both balloonists.
John Freeman Wood (d.1858, age 60, Medical Directory,1859, p.988). Physician.
George Cadogan Morgan (1754-1798, DNB). Scientific writer.
Morgan (1794).
Unidentified.

Bibliography

FARADAY, Michael (1833a): “Experimental Researches in Electricity. - Third Series. Identity of Electricities derived from different sources. Relation by measure of common and voltaic Electricity”, Phil. Trans., 123: 23-54.

MORGAN, George Cadogan (1794): Lectures on Electricity, 2 volumes, Norwich.

SINGER, George John (1814): Elements of Electricity and Electro-Chemistry, London.

Please cite as “Faraday0962,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0962