Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867) was a chemist and physicist who rose form modest beginnings to be one of best regarded scientists of his time. He made a large number of discoveries and inventions across a range of scientific fields, and started the Royal Institution's tradition of a Christmas lecture series for young people. With limited formal education Faraday took advantage of his apprenticeship to a book binder to spent his leisure time studying the books he has access to. Faraday attended the public lectures of the chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, and wrote these up in a book he presented to Davy. Impressed, Davy employed Faraday as his lab. assistant at the Royal Institution. The relationship was sometimes difficult as Davy could never accept the man from, what was considered, a lesser level of society as his equal, and he was treated much as a family servant when accompanying Davy on foreign visits. Faraday was a man of strong religious faith, a member of the Sandemanian Christian congregation, who declined a number of major honours that he felt inappropriate (including a knighthood). The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge is named after him.
