Young William Thomson

William Thomson was born in Belfast, Ireland, on June 26, 1824 to a middle-class Irish-Scottish family. His father, James Thomson was a Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Belfast Academical Institute whose family originally had emigrated from Scotland to escape religious persecution. William's mother, Margaret, died in 1830 when William was just six years old. In 1832, Thomson’s father took the family of six to Glasgow where he gained the prestigious post of Professor of Mathematics at the University of Glasgow. William was taught by his father. He learned mathematics at a very early age and as a result, William became an accomplished mathematician. Although Thomson’s father was a strict and demanding Presbyterian, William managed to maintain a close relationship with him.

In 1838, when William was 14, he began what people today would consider university work and when he was 15 his essay called An Essay on the Figure of the Earth won him a gold medal from the University of Glasgow. Thomson entered the University of Cambridge in 1841 and published his first paper that same year. This paper Fourier's expansions of functions in trigonometrical series was written to defend Fourier's mathematics against criticism from a professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. A more important paper, On the uniform motion of heat and its connection with the mathematical theory of electricity was published in 1842 while Thomson was studying for the mathematical examinations at Cambridge. Thomson graduated from Cambridge within four years with a B.A. honors degree. 

After Cambridge, William traveled to Paris to work with Henri Regnault, an experienced scientist, and gain practical experience and competence in experimental work. In 1846, Thomson returned to Glasgow and at age 22 was unanimously elected professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University where he created the first physics laboratory in a British university. Thomson invented the mirror galvanometer, a telegraph message receiver, and he supervised the laying of the first trans-Atlantic insulated electric telegraph cable which revolutionized world communications. As a result of this work, Thomson was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1866. He retired from Glasgow in 1889 after being a professor for 53 years. In 1890 he became president of the Royal Society and held that position for five years and in 1892 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Kelvin of Largs, a title he chose from the Kelvin River, near Glasgow where he was raised. In 1902, he received the Order of Merit.

Lord Kelvin and his binnacle compass

William Thomson, better known to the world as Lord Kelvin, achieved a number of scientific milestones. He published more than 600 scientific papers and filed a total of 70 patents. He developed the science of thermodynamics, wrote the second law of thermodynamics and formulated the "Kelvin" scale of absolute temperature. He also invented an electric strain gauge, an improved ship's compass, the Kelvin ampere balance and an electrostatic voltmeter among other developments.

In addition to his scientific pursuits, Lord Kelvin was a champion rower and founded the Glasgow University Music Society. William Thomson died at his home at Largs, Ayrshire on December 17th, 1907, and was buried at Westminster Abbey in London.

To learn more about Lord Kelvin’s accomplishments, visit our module on Temperature.

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