Benjamin Wilson (painter)
Benjamin Wilson (born June 21, 1721 in Leeds , † June 6, 1788 in London ) was an English painter and scientist.
He was the 14th child of Major Wilson, a cloth merchant from York. When his business went bankrupt, Benjamin moved to London , where he became a cleric and studied painting. 1746 and 1748–50 he was in Dublin , where he successfully practiced as a portrait painter. When he returned to London, he bought Godfrey Kneller's former home and opened a portrait studio.
As a scientist, Wilson opposed Benjamin Franklin's idea of positive and negative charges. He supported Isaac Newton's idea of gravitational optical ether . The churches used to ring the bells during thunderstorms, and so between 1750 and 1783 about 100 out of 300 bell rangers died of lightning. In the committee convened by the Board of Ordnance to clarify the lightning rod issue, he sat across from Franklin, whose lightning rods were pointed and protruded over the building. Wilson's lightning rods, on the other hand, had a spherical shape and ended a few feet below the highest point in the house.
In 1748 he found out that the capacity of the Leyden bottle is proportional to the area covered and inversely proportional to the wall thickness of the glass ( law of accumulation ).
He became a member of the Royal Society in 1751 and was awarded a gold medal for his electrical experiments in 1760 . From 1765 he was an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg .
Publications
- A Letter to the Marquiss of Rockingham, with Some Observations on the Effects of Lightening ; in: Philosophical Transactions 54 (1764), pp. 246-253, p. 249.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wilson, Benjamin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English painter and scientist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 21, 1721 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Leeds |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 6, 1788 |
| Place of death | London |