The teenage John Meurig Thomas sat in awe listening as Irene James, his physics teacher at Gwendraeth Grammar School, described the work of Michael Faraday, the 19th-century scientist known for his work on electricity. “She had the gift of not just telling us what physics was about but adding biographical details of great scientists,” he recalled, adding that in her classes “the flame of science was lit in my heart and in my mind”.
Forty years later Miss James was in the front row as Thomas gave his inaugural lecture as director of the Royal Institution, a post once occupied by Faraday. He especially enjoyed living in the quarters that Faraday and his wife had occupied in Albemarle Street, in Mayfair, central London: “When I