Henry Cavendish

Henry was an introvert and was extremely shy of female companions; he devoted his entire life to scientific development.

On 24 February 1810, this eminent scientist breathed his last in his London home and was interred at the Derby Cathedral of England.

The street which housed his residence in Derby was named after this revered scientific mind.

Henry Cavendish was born, to parents of Norman origin, Lady Anne Grey and Lord Charles Cavendish, on 10 October 1731 in the city of Nice, France.

After Lady Anne’s demise in 1733, Henry and his younger brother Frederick were raised by their father.

Young Henry enrolled at the ‘Hackney Academy’ in London from where he completed his schooling. He then attended the ‘St Peter’s College’ affiliated to the ‘University of Cambridge’ in 1749. But he soon abandoned his education to pursue research work in the laboratory he set up in London.

Henry’s association with the ‘Royal Society of London’ first began in the year 1760 when he was nominated a member of the ‘Royal Society’ as well as the ‘Royal Society Club’. An introvert by nature, he steered clear of any political agenda but partook a special interest in servitude to the scientific community.

In 1765, he was appointed to the ‘Council of the Royal Society of London’, in which capacity he put to use his scientific expertise and served on numerous committees including the ‘Royal Greenwich Observatory’. The following year his scientific publication titled ‘Factitious Airs’ was released.

From 1769-1773, Henry was involved with various scientific committees of the Royal Society, such as the committee which spearheaded the publication of scientific journal ‘Philosophical Transactions’, the astronomical committee which studied the transit of Venus, the committee studying gravitational attraction of mountains and the committee which marshalled the exploration of North Pole.

Henry was appointed manager of the newly founded ‘Royal Institution of Great Britain’ in 1800. Here the exceptionally talented chemist assisted the Cornish inventor, Humphry Davy, in his research.

Henry like many of his contemporaries observed the formation of a gas when a metal reacts with an acid. He named the resulting gas “inflammable air” (now known as hydrogen) and did pioneering work in establishing its nature and properties. His detailed findings were published in a paper in 1766.

Though Henry made numerous contribution in the field of chemistry he was most known for performing the ‘Cavendish Experiment’, through which he calculated the mass of Earth. The results obtained from his experiments were highly accurate and precise lying within the 10% error bracket of modern day result.