still remain valuable as a work of reference.
Meanwhile, in 1837, Sturgeon produced his electro-magnetic coil machine for giving shocks, and in the same year examined the cause of the frequent fracture of Leyden jars by electrical explosions. He discovered an effectual way of obviating these accidents by means of a connecting rod supporting the ball to the upper edge of the inner coating by cross strips of metal. Aided by this contrivance, during twelve years of active experimenting with heavy charges and discharges he did not break a single jar of his battery. In 1838 he discovered the unequal heating effects found at the two poles of the voltaic arc. Nor did he during this period intermit his experiments in atmospheric electricity. As a result of no less than five hundred kite observations, in one of which he was nearly killed, he succeeded in establishing the important fact that the atmosphere is in serene weather uniformly positive with regard to the earth, and that the higher we ascend the more positive does it become.
In 1840 Sturgeon quitted Woolwich for Manchester, upon an invitation to act as superintendent of the Royal Victoria Gallery of Practical Science, an institution intended for the dissemination of popular science and a pioneer of the highest class of technical school. Sturgeon, now fifty-seven years old, entered upon his new duties with characteristic ardour. Exhibitions, conversaziones, and lecture courses were organised. But the institution was too much in advance of its time to prove a financial success, and, like its ill-fated predecessors in London, the Adelaide Gallery and the Royal Polytechnic, it came to a premature end after an existence of about four years. Sturgeon endeavoured to establish another institution of a similar character, called the Manchester Institution of Natural and Experimental Science, but met with little support. During 1843 Sturgeon also brought out six parts of a new periodical venture, named ‘The Annals of Philosophical Discovery and Monthly Reporter of the Progress of Practical Science.’ Thenceforth he had to depend for a living upon precarious earnings as an itinerant lecturer on scientific subjects in the towns around Manchester. The railway service at that time was rudimentary, and he had to convey his apparatus in a cart. His profits cannot have been large, but his reputation was extended by his expository skill. His style was manly and vigorous. He never aimed at mere effect, though not insensible to the uncommon beauty of many of his experimental illustrations, which were rendered doubly impressive by their novelty.
From 1845 to 1850 Sturgeon felt keenly the pinch of poverty. After many exertions Bishop Prince Lee and Dr. Binney, president of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (of which Sturgeon was a member), succeeded in obtaining for him from Lord John Russell a grant of 200l., and in 1849 this was supplemented by an annuity of 50l. His health was now beginning to fail. A bronchial attack had led him in 1847 to remove for a time to his native air near Kirkby Lonsdale. There he continued his observations upon atmospheric electricity, as exhibited in several auroral displays, which he minutely described. Upon his return to Manchester he removed to the elevated suburb of Prestwich, where he died on 4 Dec. 1850. He was buried in the graveyard of Prestwich church. A marble tablet was subsequently placed to his memory in Kirkby Lonsdale church.
Sturgeon married, soon after entering the royal artillery, a widow named Hutton, who kept a shoe shop at Woolwich. They had three children, who all died in infancy. In 1829 he married again, Mary Bromley of Shrewsbury, who died on 2 Oct. 1867, aged 77, and was buried beside her husband at Prestwich. Their only child also died an infant; whereupon they adopted Sturgeon's niece, Ellen Coates, who married Luke Brierley, and died on 19 Jan. 1884, aged 51.
Sturgeon was of a tall and well-built frame of body; his forehead was high and his features were strongly marked. His address and conversation were animated. His literary style was vigorous and lucid. A small photograph (probably copied from a daguerreotype) was enlarged and engraved for the ‘Electrician,’ 13 Sept. 1895. An oil painting of Sturgeon is also in the possession of Mr. Luke Brierley of 1 Chorlton Road, Manchester. None of Sturgeon's manuscripts or apparatus have been preserved.
It has been urged against Sturgeon that his work did not result in the discovery of any great generalisations in electrical science. His phraseology, in accordance with ideas current in his day, was from the modern point of view faulty. He spoke of ‘magnetic effluvium,’ of ‘caloric’ particle, electrical fluid, and electric matter. But a glance at the list of his published works will show that, while extending the boundaries of electrical science by the observation of phenomena and the furnishing of facts, he took a high and broad view of electrical manifestations and powers. By his extensive series of
