1799 - Abraham Bennet

Abraham Bennet (1749-1799), a British physicist and inventor, died.

Abraham Bennet (baptized December 20, 1749 - buried May 9, 1799) was an English clergyman and physicist, the inventor of the gold-leaf electroscope and developer of an improved magnetometer. Though he was cited by Alessandro Volta as a key influence on his own work, Bennet's work was curtailed by the political turbulence of his time.

Abraham was baptized in Taxal, Derbyshire, the son of another Abraham Bennet, a schoolmaster, and his wife Ann née Fallowes. There is no record of him having attended university but he is recorded as a teacher at Wirksworth Grammar School. He was ordained in London in 1775 and appointed curate at Tideswell and, one year later, additionally at Wirksworth, with a combined annual stipend of £60. He further became rector of Fenny Bentley, domestic chaplain to the Duke of Devonshire, perpetual curate of Woburn and librarian to the Duke of Bedford.

Bennet had broad interests in natural philosophy and was associated with, though not a member of, the Lunar Society and the Derby Philosophical Society. He was particularly close to Erasmus Darwin. Darwin suggested that Bennet make electrical measurements as part of an investigation into electricity and weather. Bennet then worked assiduously establishing his expertise in electricity, achieving sufficient reputation to be part of a meeting with Tiberius Cavallo, William Nicholson and Volta in London in 1782.

Bennet published New Experiments on Electricity in 1789. In it, he described:

· The gold-leaf electroscope;

· A doubler of electricity, already announced in a paper communicated to the Royal Society by Rev. Richard Kaye, Dean of Lincoln in 1787; and

· A theory of electricity that anticipated Volta's contact theory. Bennet's work was a key element in leading Volta to the contact theory and the development of the voltaic pile.

Bennet described experiments with an electrophorus and the generation of electricity by evaporation. Bennet extended his thinking into various theories about electricity and weather, with electrical explanations of the aurora borealis and meteors. He interpreted lightning as the release of electrical charge from clouds, and went on to hypothesize that rain was caused by lightning and also that earthquakes had an electrical origin.

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