Lodge, Sir Oliver Joseph

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

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b. 12 June 1851 Penkhull, Staffordshire, England

d. 22 August 1940 Lake, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

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English physicist who perfected Branly's coherer; said to have given the first public demonstration of wireless telegraphy.

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At the age of 8 Lodge entered Newport Grammar School, and in 1863–5 received private education at Coombs in Suffolk. He then returned to Staffordshire, where he assisted his father in the potteries by working as a book-keeper. Whilst staying with an aunt in London in 1866–7, he attended scientific lectures and became interested in physics. As a result of this and of reading copies of English Mechanic magazine, when he was back home in Hanley he began to do experiments and attended the Wedgewood Institute. Returning to London c. 1870, he studied initially at the Royal College of Science and then, from 1874, at University College, London (UCL), at the same time attending lectures at the Royal Institution.

In 1875 he obtained his BSc, read a paper to the British Association on "Nodes and loops in chemical formulae" and became a physics demonstrator at UCL. The following year he was appointed a physics lecturer at Bedford College, completing his DSc in 1877. Three years later he became Assistant Professor of Mathematics at UCL, but in 1881, after only two years, he accepted the Chair of Experimental Physics at the new University College of Liverpool. There began a period of fruitful studies of electricity and radio transmission and reception, including development of the lightning conductor, discovery of the "coherent" effect of sparks and improvement of Branly's coherer, and, in 1894, what is said to be the first public demonstration of the transmission and reception (using a coherer) of wireless telegraphy, from Lewis's department store to the clock tower of Liverpool University's Victoria Building. On 10 May 1897 he filed a patent for selective tuning by self-in-ductance; this was before Marconi's first patent was actually published and its priority was subsequently upheld.

In 1900 he became the first Principal of the new University of Birmingham, where he remained until his retirement in 1919. In his later years he was increasingly interested in psychical research.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Knighted 1902. FRS 1887. Royal Society Council Member 1893. President, Society for Psychical Research 1901–4, 1932. President, British Association 1913. Royal Society Rumford Medal 1898. Royal Society of Arts Albert Medal 1919. Institution of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1932. Fourteen honorary degrees from British and other universities.

Bibliography

1875, "The flow of electricity in a plane", Philosophical Magazine (May, June and December).

1876, "Thermo-electric phenomena", Philosophical Magazine (December). 1888, "Lightning conductors", Philosophical Magazine (August).

1889, Modern Views of Electricity (lectures at the Royal Institution).

10 May 1897, "Improvements in syntonized telegraphy without line wires", British patent no. 11,575, US patent no. 609,154.

1898, "Radio waves", Philosophical Magazine (August): 227.

1931, Past Years, An Autobiography, London: Hodder \& Stoughton.

Further Reading

W.P.Jolly, 1974, Sir Oliver Lodge, Psychical Resear cher and Scientist, London: Constable.

E.Hawks, 1927, Pioneers of Wireless, London: Methuen.

See also: Hertz, Heinrich Rudolph

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