Maxwell was one of the most eminent theoretical physicists of the nineteenth century. He was educated in Edinburgh, and entered the University at 16, having had a paper published the previous year by the Royal Society of Edinburgh on a method of drawing ellipses using pins and thread. After becoming Second Wrangler at Trinity College, Cambridge, he obtained a chair at Aberdeen, but moved down to the Strand in 1860 when he was made redundant in an administrative reorganisation. His legacy to electromagnetism, the Maxwell Equations, were put forward in 1864. He worked for five years at King's College, on the British Association project to measure electrical standards, but resigned and returned to Scotland on the death of his father (his mother having died when he was still a child). He returned to Cambridge in the early 1870s, to set up the Cavendish Laboratory from scratch, but tragically died of cancer at the age of 48. He was succeeded in his post by Lord Rayleigh.
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