Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class SYMHC Classics: Andrew Crosse About this episode This 2021 episode covers Andrew Crosse, who observed a strange thing happening on an electrified rock in his lab in the early 1800s, and was catapulted into the public spotlight.
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Speaker 01 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
0:34 Tracy V. Wilson? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:05 Speaker 03 This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies, and making sure every order goes out on time. And Granger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies, to PPE, to hand tools, he counts on Granger to keep products moving and trucks rolling. So his operation runs smoothly, no matter the shift. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.
1:35 Tracy V. Wilson? Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs, and quick hellos are what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees the network you can rely on, so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T Guarantee. AT&T: Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.
2:13 Tracy V. Wilson? Happy Saturday. Our classic today has connections to two things that we've mentioned on the show this week, Richard Owen and the great exhibition at the Crystal Palace. It's Andrew Cross, who did some goofy stuff with electricity and crystals in the 19th century. We have a couple of little updates not directly related to Andrew Cross. In this episode, we have a whole conversation about comments on our website at missinhistory.com. The website no longer has comments on it. If you go running to there to leave us a comment, there will not be an option to do that. We also talk about Cross's home of Fine Court, which is a National Trust property today. We say in the episode that the cafe
2:56 Tracy V. Wilson? is takeout only due to COVID precautions. That is, of course, not the case. And it's also now home to a used bookstore that I don't recall being mentioned when I first researched this episode. This originally came out on January 27, 2021. Enjoy.
3:17 Tracy V. Wilson? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
3:28 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And I'm Holly Frey. After we did our episode on John Cleve Sims and his ideas of the earth being hollow, somebody suggested that we do an episode on Andrew Cross. And I wrote all this down, including the fact that he thought he invented life from crystals. And now I'm going to totally depart from the document that I gave Holly for our outline to come in here because I just figured out who suggested this. What was originally written in this outline was that I had gone looking in our email and our Facebook comments and our Twitter mentions, being like, who suggested this? I wrote all this down and I did not write down their
4:13 Tracy V. Wilson? name. Literally, sitting in this studio, I was like, maybe it was a comment on our website. It was a comment on our website from Kumari. I hope I have said your name correctly. I'm so sorry if I did not, who left the comment, "How about a podcast on Andrew Cross, who thought he created life in 1836 with his crystals and electricity? Because it's goofy." It is goofy. This was a joy to work on. Yay. It also just came together with remarkable ease, which was great because I was taking a long weekend and I wanted, I needed to get all my stuff done.
4:53 Tracy V. Wilson? No shade at all to Kumari for having left this comment on our, on our website. But I will note, we do not get notification of comments on the, the website at mistinhistory.com. It is often weeks or longer before we ever see anything on there. And we also do not have the ability to turn the comments off because it's like a whole company-wide thing to have the comments on there. So if you are going to leave a comment on our website, we're probably not going to see it in a timely manner and we may never respond to it. But my last minute, literally sitting here in the studio, "Oh, maybe it was a comment on the website." It was, it was.
5:37 Tracy V. Wilson? Cross's account of what really happened is a little bit more down to earth than thinking that he invented life, or not invented life, but created life with crystals and electricity. But it's still a delightful story. It was a lot of fun to work on. So thank you Kumari. Again, I hope I have said your name right. I have a good check because I literally made the connection just now. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah, thank you for, for suggesting this. So Andrew Cross was born on June 17, 1784, at Fein Court in Broome Field, Somerset, England. And the manor house at Fein Court was first built in the early 17th century and then it was added on to over the years. So by the time Cross was born,
6:19 Tracy V. Wilson? it had been his family's home for well over 100 years. Andrew's mother was named Susanna and his father was Richard Cross, High Sheriff of Somerset. When Andrew was four, the family moved to France and they stayed there for the next four years. Andrew spoke both French and English by the time he got back home, but after that, he really did not keep up with the French and he eventually lost it all. Although he studied Latin and Greek in school, he didn't really think he had much of an aptitude for languages. However, he did invent a new language with his younger brother, Richard, and the two of them made up a world that was populated by beings they called either hobblegies or hobblegees. We don't know for sure, which they made out of fur cones.
7:04 Tracy V. Wilson? And they imagined a whole society for the hobblegees, complete with its own legal system and a system of government, which is about as charming as you can get, in my opinion. In his own words, Andrew was, quote, "a very happy boy, careless and extravagantly fond of fun." And both boys were somewhat eccentric as they grew up. We're going to get into Andrew's eccentricities in more detail. But as for Richard, as one example, he was really, really into the metric system, so much so that his clocks were divided into 10 hours instead of 12. I have a number of questions about this. Like, if you're running your household on 10-hour clocks, do you just translate in your head to make sure you're on time for your engagements or are you always not on time?
7:48 Tracy V. Wilson? We're going to have a talk about this in our Friday episode. Super.
7:54 Tracy V. Wilson? Because your foolish co-host may have tried something similar as an adult. Oh, I'm so excited.
8:02 Tracy V. Wilson? After the Cross family got back from France, Andrew was enrolled in a school in Dorchester that was run by a Reverend Mr. White. And then in 1793, when he was nine, he moved to a school in Bristol, run by the Reverend Mr. Samuel Sayre. In addition to his work as a teacher, Sayre wrote memoirs, historical and topographical of Bristol and its neighborhood from the earliest period down to the present time. Andrew did not really enjoy his time at this school. He never felt like he had enough to eat, and he thought the food that they did have was terrible. He also didn't get along with Sayre or some of the other teachers. Plus, being extravagantly fond of fun included getting into mischief and playing jokes and pranks on people.
8:47 Tracy V. Wilson? Like, when a classmate asked him for help translating some Latin, Andrew told him that what he wanted translated meant "the stork is safest in the middle of the pond", when it really meant "the middle course is safest." And Sayre apparently did not appreciate this particular brand of silliness. Some of the trouble that Andrew got into at school was also more serious than that. Andrew liked to make his own fireworks, and that's what he was doing one day while he was also studying his Virgil. Sayre came and caught him and took what he was working on away. In Andrew's words, quote, "I watched where he put it. It was on the windowsill of a room which was always kept locked.
9:28 Tracy V. Wilson? The window, though not glazed, had close iron bars through which nothing could pass. The case was hopeless. I could not recover my rocket mixture. But a happy thought struck me. I was resolved that no one else should enjoy the spoil which I regarded as so valuable. I had a burning glass in my pocket and I thought of Archimedes and the Roman fleet. The sun was shining and I soon drew a focus on the gunpowder which immediately blew up. It was well that the house was not set on fire. As for me, I was reckless of all consequences." At one point, some of the boys at school decided to go on strike to try to get longer holiday breaks.
10:10 Tracy V. Wilson? But beyond just refusing to go to class, they were inspired by the British troops fighting in the French Revolutionary Wars, so they also planned to take over the school armed with muskets. This plan was discovered and thwarted, thankfully, before anybody carried it out. And although the ringleaders were expelled and other participants were flogged, Andrew somehow escaped notice. Aside from all of that, though, Andrew's love of science and particularly of electricity really blossomed while he was at Mr. Sayre's school. This might have had roots back in his home life. His father was actually friends with Benjamin Franklin. But while he was at Sayre's school, Andrew saw an advertisement for a lecture series,
10:54 Tracy V. Wilson? with the first installment being about optics and the second about electricity. He asked for permission to go, and that was granted, and things really took off from there. Soon, he and some schoolmates were shocking people with a laden jar that they made from an apothecary's bottle. So a laden jar is a vessel that stores static electricity. In this case, probably a stoppered vial filled partway with water with a wire through the stopper, which you charge by touching the wire to something staticky. Before long, Andrew was writing home to ask for money to buy various electrical gadgetry. To be clear, this laden jar shocking would not have been dangerous, but it would have been annoying. [laughing]
11:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Andrew's father died in 1800 and he was 16. And about that time, he started to experience what he described as nervous attacks, and they would recur regularly for the rest of his life. While he had described himself in childhood as happy and careless, he grew up to be kind of a generally anxious person with these attacks coming on suddenly and lasting for as long as 30 minutes at a time. In 1802, Cross entered Brazeno's College at Oxford, which he called, quote, "a perfect hell on earth." Wine seemed to be the focal point of social life at the college, and he hated wine. He also hated his classmates' snobbery and classism. And later on, he said, quote, "I was less liberal at this time than at any other of
12:23 Tracy V. Wilson? my life. It took some years to rub off the prejudices of class which I had acquired at Oxford." Cross earned his degree in law in 1805, and he also inherited Fine Court after his mother's death on July 3rd of that same year. This was one of a long series of losses over a period of about five years. He lost both of his parents, a sister, an uncle, two close friends, and one of his household staff, who he described as, quote, "a most faithful and attached servant." It's not really clear whether the grief over all of this led him to abandon law, but he did. He gave up law after two or three years.
13:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Instead, he established himself as a country gentleman at Fine Court, becoming absorbed in studying electricity, mineralogy, and chemistry. He also served as a magistrate, where he developed a reputation for being quite liberal. And he wrote a lot of poetry. Cross became friends with George John Singer, author of Elements of Electricity and Electrochemistry. Like Cross, Singer was an amateur scientist, whose family business involved making artificial feathers and flowers.
13:36 Tracy V. Wilson? But he was knowledgeable on the subject of electricity. He held public lectures and demonstrations that were attended by people like Michael Faraday. Cross and Singer did experiments together until Singer's death from tuberculosis in 1817 at the age of only 31. George John Singer had built a laboratory and lecture hall at his own home. But Andrew Cross's efforts to devote his home to research went even farther. We'll talk more about that after we pause for a sponsor break.
14:09 Speaker 04 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
14:39 Speaker 05 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
14:42 Tracy V. Wilson? Hey, everybody. It's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
15:03 Speaker 05 It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
15:10 Tracy V. Wilson? That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
15:17 Speaker 06 Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.
15:23 Tracy V. Wilson? And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
15:26 Speaker 06 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.
15:31 Speaker 05 What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.
15:34 Tracy V. Wilson? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love. Connecting changes everything. AT&T. So you're considering getting a home security system, but you want something that fits your space. Well, with ADT Blue, it's easy to customize a system that's right for you and set it up yourself. Just pick the kit and monitoring plan that makes sense for your home. Let's say you're worried about package theft. The ADT Plus app can walk you through setting up a new doorbell camera kit. Once it's installed, ADT Pros can help you keep tabs on it 24/7, or you can manage it yourself from the ADT Plus app. There are no long-term contracts, so you can change your monitoring plan whenever you want. The flexibility doesn't end there. You can add to your system as you need to with things
16:17 Tracy V. Wilson? like extra cameras or motion sensors. Some life decisions are hard, but thanks to ADT Blue, you can DIY trusted ADT home security in a snap. Head to ADT.com/BLU to build your system today. And to hear more about home protection and other grown-up topics, check out new episodes of Grown-Up Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
16:47 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter,
17:28 Tracy V. Wilson? and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
17:52 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1807, Andrew Cross became fascinated with crystal formations in Holwell Cavern, which is a limestone crevice in Broomfield, not far from where he'd lived. The entrance to this cavern has since been filled in. And in Cross's words, quote, "I felt convinced at an early period that the formation and constant growth of the crystalline matter which lined the roof of this cave was caused by some peculiar upward attraction. And reasoning more on the subject, I felt assured that it was electric attraction." Cross got a tumbler of water out of the stream that ran through the cavern, and he ran a current through it on wires. And eventually, some crystals did start to
18:35 Tracy V. Wilson? form. This was the first of many experiments that he conducted in electrocrystallization, which is when metals are deposited onto electrodes, eventually forming crystals. He would eventually start to experiment with electro refining, or extracting metals from their ores with electricity, which is also called electrowinning. Electrowinning, which by the way, sounds like a great band name, was first developed by Sir Humphrey Davy, who came up in our John Cleve Sims episode. Everything connects in history. Yeah, Davy was one of the people who thought John Cleve Sims did not know what he was talking about. Because he didn't. As Cross experimented, though, more and more
19:17 Tracy V. Wilson? of his home became devoted to this work. Over the next few decades, he installed six or seven furnaces for purifying metals. The estate's glassware and china became laboratory vessels, and he purified the household silver for use in his experiments. He also strung up about a third of a mile of copper wire from poles and the tallest trees on the grounds, and he connected all that to about 50 laden jars in the organ loft of the music room. This setup became particularly dramatic in foggy or stormy weather. Sir Richard Phillips visited Fine Corps and relayed a conversation with Cross, quote, "He told me that sometimes the current was so great as to charge and discharge..."
20:01 Tracy V. Wilson? The Great Battery 20 times in a minute with reports as loud as a cannon, which being continuous were so terrible to strangers that they always fled while everyone expected the destruction of himself and premises. If the weather wasn't cooperating, Cross could also manually charge the laden jars by turning a device with a crank. Here is how a visitor described Fine Court during all this. Quote, "Here was an immense number of jars and galopots containing fluids on which electricity was operating for the production of crystals, but you were startled in the midst of your observations by the smart crackling sound that attends the passage of the electrical spark. You hear also the rumblings of distant thunder.
20:46 Tracy V. Wilson? The rain is already splashing in great drops against the glass and the sound of the passing sparks continues to startle your ear. Your host is in high glee for a battery of electricity is about to come within his reach a thousandfold more powerful than all those the room strung together. You follow his hasty steps to the organ gallery and curiously approach the spot whence the noise that has attracted your notice. You see at the window a huge brass conductor with a discharging rod near it passing into the floor and from one knob to the other sparks are leaping with increasing rapidity and noise, rap, rap, rap, bang, bang, bang.
21:29 Tracy V. Wilson? Nevertheless, your host does not fear. He approaches as boldly as if the flowing stream of fire were a harmless spark." Here comes the big no surprise moment. Many of his neighbors did not particularly care for all of this. Cross was nicknamed the Wizard of Broomfield and at one point he was speaking at a meeting ahead of an election and local farmers were booing him. When an outsider asked what was wrong, someone replied, quote, "Why, don't you know him? That's Cross of Broomfield, the Thunder and Lightning Man. You can't go near his cursed house at night without danger of your life. Them as have been there have seen devils all surrounded by lightning, dancing on the wires that he has put up round his grounds."
22:12 Tracy V. Wilson? At the same time, though, there were local people who thought his experiments had curative properties. In her account of his life and work, Cross's second wife, Cornelia, described the case of a local man who was paralyzed on one side of his body and also had a salivary gland issue. Quote, "After being electrified twice a week for six weeks, he was so much better that he could walk to fine court and the complaint in the throat was entirely removed." I'm making a grimacing face. Another gem from Cornelia about their booming flashing property, quote, "We were never troubled with burglars at fine court." We will get back to Cornelia in a bit, since they got married later on in Andrew's
22:56 Tracy V. Wilson? life. His first wife was Marian Hamilton, daughter of Captain John Hamilton. They got married in 1809, relatively early into Cross's time as a gentleman scientist. They would go on to have seven children together over the next 10 years, although three of those children died when they were still children. Their oldest child, John, was born in 1810. Cross seems to have been really deeply fond of his wife and children, and very traumatized by those three deaths. At the same time, though, in terms of family, he'd been on his own, aside from a couple of younger siblings, for four years before he got married. And he just wasn't used to having a regular home life. And along with all of his experiments,
23:39 Tracy V. Wilson? it made things a little bit chaotic. Ada Lovelace became friends with both Andrew and his son, John. Ada and John actually had a romantic relationship that was also tangled up with her gambling. She summed up the atmosphere at fine court this way, quote, "The dinner hour was an accident in the day's arrangements." Even though they were living in a 17th century manor house, which suggests a lot of wealth, the Cross family's lifestyle wasn't particularly extravagant compared to other people in a similar situation. They did have problems with cash flow, though. In Cross's words, quote, "My family were learned and honorable men, as long as I can
24:21 Tracy V. Wilson? look back. But they had the happy knack of turning a guinea into a shilling, and I have inherited that faculty pretty strongly." Cornelia described him as, quote, "Indjudicious in his expenditure."
24:36 Tracy V. Wilson? Apart from his friendship with George John Singer, Andrew Cross was intellectually actually pretty isolated. One of his closest longtime friends was John Kenyon, who had been one of his classmates at Mr. Sayre's school. And while Kenyon was interested in Cross's experiments, science was really not his calling. Their overlapping interest was poetry. Kenyon wrote poetry himself, and he was a distant cousin of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. At one point before her marriage, he brought Andrew Cross to visit her. He also supplemented Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's income and left them money when he died in 1856. So Cross did talk about his work in public, but not really all that often and somewhat reluctantly.
25:20 Tracy V. Wilson? On December 28th of 1814, he gave an address at Garneran's Lecture Hall. And it is possible that Mary Shelley, who at the time was Mary Godwin, attended this lecture. She references it in her diary. But her notes about it are also kind of vague. She writes about going from place to place looking for Thomas Jefferson Hogg, but not finding him at any of those places, before saying, quote, "Go to Garneran's, lecture on electricity, the gases and the phantasmagoria. Return at half past nine. Shelley goes to sleep." So it's not 100% clear whether Garneran's was one of the places she was looking for Hogg, and she was just noting the topic of the lecture that night, or if she actually attended the lecture herself.
26:05 Tracy V. Wilson? Either way, though, sometimes people point to this diary entry as evidence that Cross was an inspiration for Shelley's novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, which was published four years later. In 1836, Cross reluctantly agreed to speak at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science that was being held in Bristol. He had intended to go to the meeting simply as an observer, but he was persuaded to talk about his experiments with electrocrystallization. It turned out that people were fascinated. John Dalton, who we just covered on the show, was in attendance, and he told Cross he had never before listened to anything so interesting. And all this attention made Cross fairly uncomfortable, though.
26:50 Tracy V. Wilson? In his words, quote, "I slipped away out of it all." And he went home before the meeting was over. It was not long before he was getting even more attention, though. And we'll talk more about that after a sponsor break.
27:05 Speaker 01 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
27:36 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So, listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
28:21 Tracy V. Wilson? only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
28:35 Speaker 05 Okay, chicken nugget fans, I've got huge news. The new Burger King Chicken Nuggets just dropped, and they are the crispiest, the juiciest, and the tastiest chicken nuggets ever at Burger King. Burger King heard that a lot of you didn't like the old chicken nuggets, so they got to work and reinvented them. To go along with the new chicken nuggets, a lot of the sauces were reinvented too, because better chicken nuggets deserve better sauces. We're talking new buffalo sauce, honey mustard, sweet and sour, and even a whole new option too, the new special savory sauce, which is only available for a limited time at participating US restaurants. I mean, you need to taste it all for yourself. This new chicken nugget, reinvented based
29:19 Speaker 05 On real feedback is made with 100% white meat chicken and is now better than ever. You gotta try the new Burger King Chicken Nuggets and Sauces today.
29:30 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges and
30:14 Tracy V. Wilson? find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
30:46 Tracy V. Wilson? After the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in 1836, a lot of the response to Andrew Cross's work was pretty positive, but he did have some detractors. On January 31 of 1837, he wrote a letter to a newspaper called The Atlas in which he responded to what he described as "an attack by a Dr. Ritchie." I could not find the text of this article, but Ritchie apparently criticized Cross for framing his work as "discoveries" when other people had discovered these things many years before. Ritchie also described Cross's work in a way that just wasn't very accurate.
31:31 Tracy V. Wilson? Cross's tone is kind of along the lines of, "You were there at the meeting, Dr. Ritchie, and you could have just asked me if you had questions, instead of writing this incorrect article mischaracterizing me and my experiments, which I do because I love them." In this response, Cross framed his work as "observations, not discoveries." His letter ended, quote, "P.S. I should have sent this answer long since, but have been prevented by severe illness. I must beg in future to decline engaging in scientific warfare with anyone, having neither inclination nor time for that kind of amusement." But Dr. Ritchie's article that he was responding to was just the tip of the iceberg. Not long after he spoke at the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
32:15 Tracy V. Wilson? Andrew Cross became famous in a way that he really did not expect and also really did not want. He had been experimenting with a piece of porous volcanic rock, which he was using because of its porosity rather than because of its composition. He kept this rock electrified with a voltaic battery, and he had placed it in a fluid that was saturated with black flint and potassium carbonate. In his words, quote, "On the 14th day from the commencement of this experiment, I observed through a lens a few small whitish excrescences, or nipples, projecting from about the middle of the electrified stone. On the 18th day, these projections enlarged and struck out seven or eight filaments, each of them longer than
33:00 Tracy V. Wilson? the hemisphere on which they grew. On the 26th day, these appearances assumed the form of a perfect insect, standing erect on a few bristles which formed its tail. Till this period, I had no notion that these appearances were other than an incipient mineral formation. On the 28th day, these little creatures moved their legs. I must now say that I was not a little astonished. After a few days, they detached themselves from the stone and moved about at pleasure." He went on to write, quote, "In the course of a few weeks, about 100 of them made their appearance on the stone. I examined them with a microscope and observed that the smaller ones appeared to have only six legs, the larger ones eight."
33:45 Tracy V. Wilson? Cross thought the most likely explanation for this startling occurrence was that airborne mites had deposited their eggs on his equipment, which was exposed to the air. But that didn't explain why the mites seemed able to survive in an environment that should have killed them. Later on, he also acknowledged that the early stage of these creatures' formation was nearly indistinguishable from the early stages of crystal formation, so he might have just been mistaken. Beyond that, he said, quote, "I have never ventured an opinion on the cause of their birth, and for a very good reason. I was unable to form one." He talked over what he had seen with some other scientists, and he sent some samples to Richard Owen. Owen was a biologist, a comparative anatomist, and a paleontologist.
34:30 Tracy V. Wilson? He's actually the person who coined the term "dinosauria." He also very vocally criticized Charles Darwin's work on evolution. Owen said that these were cheese mites, which are arachnids from the genus Akaris. Cross called them Akaris galvanicus. Cross never intended to publicize this find anywhere, but at some point, he either mentioned it to, or was overheard by William Bragg of the Somerset County Gazette. Bragg published an article on December 31, 1836, titled "Extraordinary Experiment." Although Bragg's article did not make this claim, soon, papers all over Britain and Ireland
35:10 Tracy V. Wilson? were printing sensationalized reports that Andrew Cross of Somerset had used electricity to create life. So, to be clear, Andrew Cross did make some far-fetched claims during his lifetime.
35:26 Tracy V. Wilson? Like he told a story about being bitten by a cat that died that day of hydrophobia, which is rabies. About three months later, Cross had a worrying combination of symptoms. He was thirsty, but his throat spasmed when he tried to drink water. And he had a pain that started in his hand and worked its way up to his elbow and shoulder. Convinced that he was going to die of hydrophobia, he went shooting and intentionally exerted himself. And thanks to his physical exertion and mental focus, he was better in three days. He wrote, quote, "I mentioned the circumstance to Dr. Kinglake, and he said he certainly considered that I had had an attack of hydrophobia,
36:08 Tracy V. Wilson? which would possibly have proved fatal had I not struggled against it by a strong effort of mind." You cannot cure rabies with exercise and positive thinking. It would just never occur to me to be like, I think I might have rabies. You know what I should do? Go shooting. That's going to help. Um, as an anxious person, I can totally see myself being like, oh no, this thing is happening to me. Uh, we, we don't really know if Dr. Kinglake really did think that he had somehow staved off, uh, an attack of rabies or if, if Kinglake was humoring him. That's right, dear. You cured yourself.
36:48 Tracy V. Wilson? But even though he had this whole story about the cat and the rabies, um, he did not say that he had used electricity to create life. He steadfastly maintained that not only had he never made that claim, he had never said anything that a reasonable person could interpret that way. He really didn't know for sure why mites had hatched in his experiment. I mean, he had that kind of best guess of like, maybe some mites put their eggs on there, but he, he definitely did not think he had created them or given life to them with electricity.
37:28 Tracy V. Wilson? For the next few years, though, Cross faced ongoing accusations of blasphemy and atheism because of this misreporting of his work and the rumors that followed. People called him a Frankenstein and a disturber of the peace of families. Cornelia Cross later wrote, quote, "After disavowing all intention to raise any questions connected with either natural or revealed religion," he went on to observe that he was sorry to see that the faith of his neighbors could be overset by the claw of a mite. Other people tried to replicate Cross's results, but only one, William Henry Weeks of Sandwich, had any success, and that happened in 1840.
38:09 Tracy V. Wilson? Weeks had placed his experiment under a bell jar in mercury to seal it off from the external air. And he said that, quote, "Five perfect insects formed on November 25th, 1841." After more than a year of the experiment running, so he had started the experiment in 1840 and then reported this 1841, he named these mites Acharis Crossi after Andrew Cross. Cross and Weeks were both threatened with violence, and they were not the only people caught up in this media storm. Another was Michael Faraday, who was falsely reported as having confirmed Cross's experiment in February of 1837. Not only had he not done this, he also had not tried to.
38:54 Tracy V. Wilson? As all of this was happening, several members of Cross's family were seriously ill. His wife, Mary Ann, died in 1846, and his brother, Richard, died just four days later. Andrew was absolutely bereft, and he went to London, where he spent most of the next four years as the house and grounds of fine court fell into disrepair. While he was in London, he met Cornelia Augusta Hewitt Berkeley, who was a fan of his work. In her words, quote, "When young, I had always been intensely interested in Mr. Cross's experiments in electrical science. I had cut out scraps from the newspapers that made mention of his discoveries, so that it was with no common feelings that I looked upon the man whose power in wielding
39:39 Tracy V. Wilson? that mysterious agent, electricity, had so excited my imagination."
39:44 Tracy V. Wilson? She goes on to say that she was disappointed that at their first meeting, he didn't talk about electricity. Perhaps he was hungry. I love that.
39:54 Tracy V. Wilson? Andrew and Cornelia got married in 1850. He was 66 and she was 23. They went back to Find Court where they had a son in 1852, followed by two more children, bringing his total surviving children to 10. Cornelia helped Andrew with his experiments and observation. He tried to use electricity to purify seawater and restore spoiled foods to wholesomeness and make a hangover cure by electrifying wine and beer. When he published his work, he did so through the Electrical Society, which took a more populist, egalitarian approach than many of the more formal academic societies. In 1851, the Crosses went to the Great Exhibition in London
40:37 Tracy V. Wilson? at Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, which we've covered previously on the show. They also went on a tour of England, coming back to Find Court in 1855. On May 28, 1855, Andrew Cross had what he called a paralytic seizure. It was probably a stroke that paralyzed part of his body. He died on July 6th in the same room where he had been born. On his deathbed, he changed his will to leave his property to his wife, rather than his oldest son, John. But she then gave the estate to John and his family. Andrew Cross is buried in the churchyard at the Church of St. Mary and All Saints in Broomfield. Cornelia had an obelisk erected in his memory there.
41:20 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1857, Cornelia published Memorials: Scientific and Literary of Andrew Cross, the Electrician, which discussed her late husband's life and work, including many of his poems and correspondence, and a complete account of the experiment with the mites. In 1892, she published Red Letter Days of My Life, which included her recollections about the scientists and writers and thinkers that she had come to know during their marriage. Most of the manor house at Fine Court is no longer standing. It was largely destroyed in a fire in 1894. But the library and music room are still there, as well as a gardener's cottage and a church. Some of the structures still standing on the property are used as office space,
42:04 Tracy V. Wilson? including for organizations like Somerset Wildlife Trust, and visitors can stay at the gardener's cottage. It is primarily a nature preserve with walking trails and a tea room, with the tea room currently only takeout due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have made some references to Andrew Cross's poetry, and I thought we would end on one of his poems. This is called "The Three Trenches." "Three circling trenches round my heart I throw, To keep at bay each intermeddling foe. Within the first, the world may enter free, Whate'er their sect, opinion, or degree. Safe o'er the next, I greet a fair array, Serenely smiling as a summer's day.
42:48 Tracy V. Wilson? To pass the third, alas, how few contrive! And of those dearest few, how few survive." That is Andrew Cross.
43:00 Tracy V. Wilson? This is one of those topics that if I had a do-over in a time machine, I would have saved this for like a tour show because it's so fun. It's very, very fun.
43:16 Tracy V. Wilson? Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is [email protected] . And you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
43:38 Tracy V. Wilson? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what could Comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs and quick hellos are what keep relationships
44:23 Tracy V. Wilson? strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees the network you can rely on so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T Guarantee. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.
44:46 Tracy V. Wilson? Livright, publishers of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book, writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims that it's destined
45:06 Speaker 04 to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback.
45:14 Speaker 04 Hey, what's up? This is Kelvin Washington from The I Couple with Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shoptoyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.
45:51 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Previous Behind the Scenes Minis: Bullet Journal Dinosaur Next Two 504 Figures: Kitty Cone and Brad Lomax Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated