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Francis Hauksbee
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Francis Hauksbee
Francis Hauksbee the Elder FRS (1660–1713), also known as Francis Hawksbee, was an 18th-century English scientist best known for his work on electricity and electrostatic repulsion.
Francis Hauksbee was the son of draper and common councillor Richard Hauksbee and his wife Mary. He was baptized on 27 May 1660 in the parish of St Mary-at-the-Walls, Colchester. He was the fifth of five sons. In 1673 Hauksbee entered Colchester Royal Grammar School. From 1678 to at least 1685 he apprenticed as a draper in the City of London, initially to his eldest brother. He was married no later than May 1687, when a daughter was born. Five of his eight children survived infancy. From 1687 to 1703, he may have run his own drapery shop. From at least March 1701, he lived at Giltspur Street, where he made air-pumps and pneumatic engines.
The transition from drapery to scientific instrumentation and experimentation is not well documented. Historians have had to speculate about the events that lead to Hauksbee engagement with the Royal Society. Hauksbee became Isaac Newton's lab assistant. He became a member of the Royal Society on 30 November 1703. On 15 December 1703, he made his first experimental demonstration to the Society (a new air-pump and the phenomenon of ‘mercurial phosphorus,’ a kind of electrostatic discharge). This was also the first meeting chaired by Isaac Newton, who had just become president of the Society, and wished to resurrect the Royal Society's weekly demonstrations.
Hauksbee was an instrument maker and appointed as chief experimentalist of the Royal Society. He was never formally appointed as Curator of experiments, even though he fulfilled the functions customarily associated with that office, and he never received a fixed salary. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 30 November 1705, with lowest social class status among the previously elected Fellows.
By 1709 Hauksbee had established himself at Wine Office Court, and by 1712 at Hind Court, both near Fleet Street and the Royal Society's house at Crane Court. He died at Hind Court and was buried in St Dunstan's-in-the-West, London on 29 April 1713. John Theophilus Desaguliers succeeded Hauksbee at the Royal Society, appointed as Demonstrator and Curator in 1714, by invitation from Isaac Newton, who was still President.
Hauksbee's primary contributions were that he was a talented scientific instrument-maker and a creative experimenter, who was able to discover unknown and unexpected phenomena, especially his observations about electrical attraction and repulsion.
Until 1705, most of these experiments were air pump experiments of a mundane nature, but Hauksbee then turned to investigating the luminosity of mercury which was known to emit a glow under barometric vacuum conditions, a phenomenon known as barometric light.
He was the first to observe, in the early 1700s, that it was possible to use glass for electrical experiments.
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Francis Hauksbee
Francis Hauksbee the Elder FRS (1660–1713), also known as Francis Hawksbee, was an 18th-century English scientist best known for his work on electricity and electrostatic repulsion.
Francis Hauksbee was the son of draper and common councillor Richard Hauksbee and his wife Mary. He was baptized on 27 May 1660 in the parish of St Mary-at-the-Walls, Colchester. He was the fifth of five sons. In 1673 Hauksbee entered Colchester Royal Grammar School. From 1678 to at least 1685 he apprenticed as a draper in the City of London, initially to his eldest brother. He was married no later than May 1687, when a daughter was born. Five of his eight children survived infancy. From 1687 to 1703, he may have run his own drapery shop. From at least March 1701, he lived at Giltspur Street, where he made air-pumps and pneumatic engines.
The transition from drapery to scientific instrumentation and experimentation is not well documented. Historians have had to speculate about the events that lead to Hauksbee engagement with the Royal Society. Hauksbee became Isaac Newton's lab assistant. He became a member of the Royal Society on 30 November 1703. On 15 December 1703, he made his first experimental demonstration to the Society (a new air-pump and the phenomenon of ‘mercurial phosphorus,’ a kind of electrostatic discharge). This was also the first meeting chaired by Isaac Newton, who had just become president of the Society, and wished to resurrect the Royal Society's weekly demonstrations.
Hauksbee was an instrument maker and appointed as chief experimentalist of the Royal Society. He was never formally appointed as Curator of experiments, even though he fulfilled the functions customarily associated with that office, and he never received a fixed salary. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 30 November 1705, with lowest social class status among the previously elected Fellows.
By 1709 Hauksbee had established himself at Wine Office Court, and by 1712 at Hind Court, both near Fleet Street and the Royal Society's house at Crane Court. He died at Hind Court and was buried in St Dunstan's-in-the-West, London on 29 April 1713. John Theophilus Desaguliers succeeded Hauksbee at the Royal Society, appointed as Demonstrator and Curator in 1714, by invitation from Isaac Newton, who was still President.
Hauksbee's primary contributions were that he was a talented scientific instrument-maker and a creative experimenter, who was able to discover unknown and unexpected phenomena, especially his observations about electrical attraction and repulsion.
Until 1705, most of these experiments were air pump experiments of a mundane nature, but Hauksbee then turned to investigating the luminosity of mercury which was known to emit a glow under barometric vacuum conditions, a phenomenon known as barometric light.
He was the first to observe, in the early 1700s, that it was possible to use glass for electrical experiments.
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