The Life of William Nicholson, 1753–1815 A Memoir of Enlightenment, Commerce, Politics, Arts & Science

Written in 1868, the publication of this memoir (now in the Bodleian Library) acts as prelude to a comprehensive biography of the extraordinary William Nicholson, author, inventor, patent agent and civil engineer, published later in 2018. This is a memoir of enlightenment, commerce, politics, arts and science, in an age of revolution. A prominent member of a flourishing scientific and literary community, William Nicholson, author, patent agent and civil engineer, founded a widely-circulated journal (universally known as 'Nicholson's Journal'), which helped establish Humphry Davy's reputation. He was the first person to decompose water by electrolysis and was the inventor of cylindrical printing. Despite this, little has been written about his colourful life. This memoir, written by his son in 1868, now published for the first time, revisits London's rich cultural scene at the end of the eighteenth century, documenting Nicholson's overlooked part in this milieu of consilience and revolution. From inventions and significant contributions to science, to his work in literature and his friendships with the leading lights of the period, such as Sir Joseph Banks, Thomas Holcroft and William Godwin (he was invited to make a phrenological study of the infant Mary Shelley), William Nicholson's life reads as a microcosm of an Enlightenment making way for Romanticism. Bringing together Jacobin intrigue and a cast of familiar characters, it will please historians of the era and historians of science alike.

Sue Durrell writes extensively on marketing for the legal profession and has edited thousands of legal articles. She also writes occasionally on hiking and fly-fishing. Based in Staffordshire, she became interested in Nicholson via his connections with Josiah Wedgwood `the father of marketing' and his work as an early patent agent. Sue created the acclaimed website www.nicholsonsjournal.com and she is the author of a biography of William Nicholson due to be published in November 2018. Frank James is Professor of the History of Science at UCL and the Royal Institution where he is also Head of Collections. William Nicholson Jnr (1789 – 1874) 'I William Nicholson now in my eightieth year, whose father William Nicholson died fifty-three years ago, have seen and heard a great deal of what passed in my father’s lifetime among the most distinguished philosophers of those days. Being now out of business and a comparatively idle man; I think good to record what I do know and like Marco Polo ‘Put down the things that I have seen only’ and whether I am roasted or let alone by those awful reviewers, I shall even offer a copy to a bookseller, who if he likes to risk his money, I will risk the roasting. For though I feel and well know that I have no pretensions to rank with the great in the world of science, yet ‘In nature’s infinite book of science a little I can read’!