A Shocking Discovery!

Andrea here, musing today on a very “shocking” topic! Ha—now that I have your attention, I shall explain! I have a new release coming out on the 24th. Murder at Kensington Palace is the third book in my Wrexford & Sloane Regency mystery series, and the plot involves electricity!

The voltaic pile (basically the first electrical battery) was invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800. As often happens in the world of invention, the discovery was sparked by a disagreement he had with Luigi Galvani, another man of science who had discovered he could make the legs of a dead frog “jump “ when they were used to form a circuit between two different type of metal. Galvani claimed he had discovered animal electricity—an electrical fluid inherent in the frog itself.

Volta believed the reaction had a more rational explanation than that, and set about creating a chemical electrolyte (the fluid that creates the circuit between two different metals and thus an electrical current.) He soaked cloth or cardboard in brine and spaced them between disks of zinc and metal—and lo and behold created an electrical current! By adding more disks and electrolyte pads, he discovered he could make a voltaic pile more powerful.

This awesome new discovery was hugely exciting to the scientific world during the Regency. In London, people flocked to the Royal Institution, one of the leading scientific organizations of the time, to hear lectures and see demonstrations of voltaic batteries.

 

I was lucky enough last summer to visit the Royal Institution, which is still in the same wonderful classical building on Albemarle Street in London as it was in Regency times. In the basement is a recreation of the Regency laboratory of Michael Faraday, a very famous scientist and pioneer in electricity. I was able to see an actual trough battery—which is the most powerful type of voltaic pile—amid all the other scientific equipment of the day. It figures prominently in Murder at Kensington Palace. (Sorry, you have to read the book to discover just how!) The people at the Royal Institution were very excited to hear I was plotting a murder within their august walls and were gracious enough to give me the thumbs up!

While the Royal Institution encouraged rational experiments, Galvani’s ideas that living organisms possessed some inherent electrical fluid didn’t die out. In fact, he became famous for his lectures showing the jumping frogs, and a great many people believed his claims that voltaic piles could perhaps reanimate the dead and create eternal life. (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was inspired by Galvanism.) He also began to draw huge audiences with his claim that illnesses could be cured as many were caused by blockages in the life fluid that electricity could fix.

His nephew, Giovanni Aldini took things to even greater extremes. He insisted his uncle’s theory that the dead could possibly be reanimated was true and set out to prove it. In 1803, he convinced the authorities at Newgate Prison to let him have the corpse of George Foster, a man hanged for murder. Poor Foster was rushed fresh from the gallows to a nearby house, where Aldini had assembled an audience to witness his gruesome experiment. Electrical stimulus from a voltaic pile was applied to the corpse. An account from the time reported:

“On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion.”

Britain’s scientific community, led by paragons of rational, empirical-based men of science like Sir Humphry Davy, (who constructed one of the most powerful voltaic piles of the era—it used 2,000 disks!) turned its back on such quackery—as quackery it was. But on the Continent, galvanism and Aldini’s claims remained popular. There are a number of stories about other more gruesome experiments seeking to prove the dead could be brought back to life, but I shall spare you!

I’ve been having great fun weaving scientific discoveries into the plots of my mystery series. One of the reasons I love the Regency era is because of how new ideas challenged the accepted preconceptions and radically changed society—whether people wanted them to or not! Change is frightening, and I find that that helps adds an extra aura of danger and tension to a conundrum. In Murder at Kensington Palace, Charlotte, one of the main protagonists in the series, must face some very elemental questions about her place in life—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—when faced with exploring new ideas in order to find the truth about the death of someone she holds very dear.

Electricity was especially compelling theme. Imagine that sense of wonder when people discovered that they could create powerful currents, and realized all the possibilities it offered! Today, I think most of us simply can’t picture a world without electricity. So, here’s my question—what would you miss most if the grid suddenly shut off? (Having lost power for seven days during Hurricane Sandy, I have first-hand experience in realizing just how much of modern life runs on electricity!) Please share!

Comments

[Lillian Marek]

Well, I know what I missed most after Hurricane Sandy—HEAT! We had a gas stove and candles, so we could cook and read, but it soon got really cold in the house.

I know that if we were living pre-electricity we would have been prepared with a heat source—like a fireplace or stove—that didn't require an electric thermostat. And we would have our main meal mid-day while the sun was up because I discovered how hard it is to prepare a meal by candle light.

I think what I would miss most would be instant communication and being able to get in touch with family and friends right away to find out if they were all right.

[Mary T]

What a fascinating post. It is so interesting to see how people interpreted new ideas and discoveries.

The only times I have ever been without electricity was due to storms and only lasted a day or two. And it only ever happened when it was extremely hot or cold. So what I missed most was the ability to heat or cool the house.

We had storms a few years back that affected a large number of people in this area. Mine was only out for about 6 hours, but my poor sister and her husband who live up the hill from me lost their electricity for over 2 weeks. They were able to spend a lot of time at my house, but they never wanted to leave their house all night. Pure misery.

[Donna H.]

We have lost power for a few days in a row when the grid died on the east coast of the U.S. and Canada and Iremember hearing horror stories of people being stuck in elevators for hours and hours. It was summer and very hot and I hated having to throw out all our food that was in our chest freezer and not having any way to cool the house or have cold drinks and I was mighty sick of eating sandwiches and food that could not be heated.We could not get gas for our generator because of course, the gas stations need electricity to pump gas and also buying anything at a store was impossible as the cash registers are all electric.

[Kareni]

I was going to say refrigeration, but then I recalled that we have an electric stove and oven. Hmm. And then there's electric heat which is certainly nice come winter. I think I'm going too have to pass on this question!

[Misti]

LOL - probably Google. I ask Google so many questions.

I'm so excited for your book. I've pre-ordered it and pretty much cleared that evening on my calendar. :)

[Andrea Penrose]

Heat is a real basic, isn't it! Many new condo and houses don't have fireplaces. (I moved a few years ago and really mine!0 Granted a blazing wood fire doesn't throw off all that much heat, but a wood stove does. When storms hit in the north during winter now, heat is a huge issue.

And I agree——communication is a godsend in an emergency.

[Andrea Penrose]

Yes, heat or cold is REALLY hard to bear for any time. Two weeks—acck! Thank goodness, you were there for your sister and her family.

As I said, I lost my electricity for 6 days, and my life totally changed. I had to spend so much time doing mundane tasks, like figuring out how to cook on the outdoor grill in the cold, go get water because the pump was down . . . and simple tings like washing my face and brushing my teeth. Life is hard without electricity!

[Andrea Penrose]

So true on all the things you don't think of, like cash registers! I remeber our huge Shop and Shop was flummoxed on trying to sell food because no one could math manually!

[Andrea Penrose]

Assuming your phone carrier is up and running!

Thanks SO much for the nice words on my book!I hope you enjoy it.

[Andrea Penrose]

Yes, there are sort-of too many to count!

[Lucy]

Experiments with forms of machine-generated (apparently static-type) electricity were taking place by the middle of the 18th century, and could produce quite a powerful and painful spark. (Some experiments, I'm sorry to say, were performed on servants and children, with resulting burns.) It became a fad for fashionable ladies in Hanover to conduct "experiments" as parlor entertainment: I'm not certain how many English ladies followed the trend, if they did.

However, in April of 1745, the Gentleman's Magazine reported,"Electricity is a vast country, of which we know only some bordering provinces; it is yet unseasonable to give a map of it, and pretend to assign the laws by which it is governed."

Fascinating to learn how the sequel developed in the Regency period!

[Mary M.]

Why, the ability to read and respond to this blog! And email, syncable calendars, and my holy of holies, ebooks. ;-)

I realize that heat and a/c are more fundamental, but last year my cat and I survived almost a week in mid-July in Phoenix while waiting for a new HVAC system to be installed. I would have been much unhappier (though cooler, I admit) if my interwebs had quit on me instead.

[Margot]

I grew up with very limited electricity and am able to do without if needed. But In this modern world there is so much that relies on power and we have all acclimatized to that - it is difficult when the power goes off to adapt. Most of the younger generation do not know how to cope without electricity. Our homes and lives are not adapted to doing without. When the power goes off we suddenly realize how much it is needed.
When I read the historic novels, I get my mind back to my childhood and understand the lives of those in the story. I could manage to live without power - but since I have experienced all it has to offer it would be difficult to go back to simply surviving. Communication alone is something I would miss - both by telephone and computer. I could write letters but then my day would be so filled with all the other things I have to do.

[Annette N]

I live in a town house community which is all electric. No heat or AC, no cooked food, no coffee!

I lived in a very rural area when I was young. And living without electricity at the time was just a given. But, we had other sources for our needs.

Now, I would be up the creek without a voltaic pile.

[Andrea Penrose]

Thanks so much for sharing this, Lucy! Yes, I've read about the static electricity machines. They developed as interest in science really exploded in the late 1600's and interest in natural phenomena grew. It's all so fascinating!

[Andrea Penrose]

Yes, I have to agree that we've become inextricably intertwined with the web! I try to be careful about it, but it's hard. We do so much of our interaction, both personal and professional, through the ether that it's truly become a staple of modern life.

[Andrea Penrose]

You make a great point, Margot. Without electricity much of the day s is spent on simple survival things—chop wood for heat, fetch water, grow food, wash by hand . . . It's a VERY different way of life. And I think we would all feel very isolated with the communication network we have.

[Andrea Penrose]

Ha, I think we would ALL be up a creek without electricity!

[Teresa Broderick]

Andrea I'm just getting to your book now which you very kindly sent to me. I've been trying to get my daughter organised for college which she's returned to as a mature student after several years of illness and time has been scarce. I'm so looking forward to it.

I grew up in rural Ireland without electricity. We got water from a well at our Aunts house and had a coal fire in the kitchen. I didn't take much notice of it at the time. I think the cold is what I remember most. We used to scrape the frost off the inside of the bedroom window in the mornings to see what the day was like. I think what I would miss most now would be the internet believe it or not. It's my link to the outside world. I'm a stay at home mother and often don't see anyone all day so it's a God send for me. I'd miss sites like this:)

[Karin]

Those are some horribly gruesome experiments!
When we lose power during warmer weather, for me the worst thing is trying to keep my freezer cold, and usually ice cubes are the first thing to sell out! I freeze a lot of vegetables from my garden, and I've also got quarts of berries from summer picking, so losing all that food is my biggest worry.

[Andrea Penrose]

Teresa, that's wonderful that your daughter is returning to college. I hope she enjoys all the many ideas and inspirations that can happen on a campus. I hope you enjoy the book!

Brrr on the ice inside the windows! You REALLY have experienced a Jane Austen world. There's a reason there were curtained canopied beds in past centuries!

As you see, you're not alone in thinking the internet is so important in us connected to friends and world around us. It's wonderful that it lets us build communities like this one, where we all—quite literally—come from every corner of the globe. How nice is that!

[Andrea Penrose]

Yes, they really were quite gruesome experiments.

I don't blame you for being worried about losing all that lovely homegrown garden bounty. Fingers crossed they stay safe and sound!

[Lucy]

Amazing, isn't it--the things we DON'T learn in school? Ben Franklin and his kite would seem to have been rather late in the game. :-)

I had read the article in the Gentleman's Mag, but had no idea the experimenting went back even to the previous century. Thanks for adding!

[Andrea Penrose]

It's really true, Lucy, there is SO much fascinating history that we don't learn in school, especially when you delve into a topic. I've discovered the late 1600s was quite amazing—you Newton and Boyle, and the microscope being finetuned enough to start seeing amazing things that's invisible to the naked eye. And that got them all thinking about the world around them, and wanting to understand all its inexplicable forces. Every era has exciting frontiers of knowledge . . .it always puzzles me that people can find history dry and boring!

[Lucy]

Also, since you've dated it back to the 17th century, I now feel compelled to make an 18th century character utter the line, "Bah! Electricity. That old stuff!"

*grin*

[Andrea Penrose]

Ha, ha, ha!

[Sue McCormick]

A fascinating post.

We have an electric kitchen, so a power outage is always a trial. My computer is a laptop, so I can finish up before I shut down. But I do need to do that so that I don't loose data!

As I become more and more housebound, I truly depend on the internet.

[Vicki L]

I would say staying warm...then internet access. I can cope with being hot much better than being cold.

Because we go camping frequently I do have lots of alternative sources of heat and luckily I have a gas stove. Which means I can heat water and cook means on top of the stove (though not in the oven).

Also, my husband loves flashlights and lanterns so we have QUITE a vast collection of those. Solar as well as battery powered! Also power banks to recharge phones and kindles with. As long as we are conservative and don't use the internet or do much in the way of phone calls!

Because we do go camping quite a bit I am aware of how much more effort and time it takes to "DO" anything when not in my so convenient 1st world, dependable all utilities working house.