📍Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BS, UK
1813 – 1862“I was a blacksmith's son from south London, apprenticed to a bookbinder, and I taught myself science from the books I bound. In 1812 a customer gave me tickets to hear Sir Humphry Davy lecture at the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street. I wrote up my notes, bound them, and sent them to him, and in March 1813 he took me on as his laboratory assistant. I was given rooms in the attic of the Institution, and for most of the next fifty years, this building in Mayfair was my home. In 1821 I married Sarah Barnard, whom I had met through our small Sandemanian church, and we lived together in an apartment on the upper floors. We had no children of our own, but Sarah's nieces lived with us, and the building was always full of life. My laboratory was in the basement, dim and damp, but ideal for my experiments with light and magnetism. There, in 1831, I discovered electromagnetic induction, the principle behind every generator and electric motor. I could walk down from our sitting room to my bench, and up again to the lecture theatre. I loved to share what I found. I began the Friday Evening Discourses and helped found the Christmas Lectures for young people, and I gave nineteen series myself, including The Chemical History of a Candle. In 1858 Queen Victoria granted us a house at Hampton Court, and we gradually moved there. The Royal Institution still stands in Albemarle Street, and my basement laboratory is preserved in the Faraday Museum.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today