Andrew Crosse: early nineteenth-century amateur of electrical science

Andrew Crosse, the Squire of Broomfield in Somerset, was born in 1784 and died in 1855. His time was spent mainly in the ordinary duties of his estate, but his chief interest was electrical study and experimentation. He achieved national notoriety for a short time, about 1836, when it was asserted that he created living insects during one of this experiments. The author investigates Crosse´s scientific career as an example of the amateur experimenters of the period. Electrical study was then in transition from a dilettante hobby to the life-work of professionals.