SYMHC Classics: Andrew Crosse

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Missed in History Class – SYMHC Classics: Andrew Crosse

Hosts: Tracy V. Wilson, Holly Fry
Release Date: January 3, 2026 (Classic episode originally aired January 27, 2021)
Podcast Network: iHeartPodcasts
Episode Theme:
An exploration of the eccentric life and misunderstood scientific achievements of Andrew Crosse—a 19th-century English amateur scientist sometimes (erroneously) associated with the creation of life through electricity and mineral experiments.

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Overview

This episode delves into the story of Andrew Crosse, a country gentleman and amateur scientist known for his experiments with electricity and minerals. Crosse became infamous due to rumors that he had “created life” in his laboratory, which led to controversy and sensational reporting in Victorian England. Through anecdotes and accounts from his contemporaries and family, hosts Tracy and Holly separate myth from fact, unpack the science behind his experiments, and examine his personal legacy—complete with charming side stories about his home life and eccentric tendencies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Request and Research Process

• Tracy shares how the episode was pitched via a comment by Kumari on the now-removed podcast website feature, highlighting how listener interactions shape episode topics.
  • Notable Moment (04:02): “I just figured out who suggested this... It was a comment on our website from Kumari... Because it’s goofy. It is goofy. This was a joy to work on.” – Tracy

2. Early Life and Eccentricity of Andrew Crosse

• Origins: Born in 1784 at Fine Court, Somerset, into a well-established family.
• Lived in France from age 4-8, learned and forgot French, created elaborate fantasy worlds with his brother, including crafting societies for imaginary “hobble geese.”
• Noted for playful pranks and mischief at school, such as misleading classmates with Latin translations and building fireworks.
  • Memorable Anecdote (08:57): “Andrew liked to make his own fireworks... I had a burning glass in my pocket and thought of Archimedes and the Roman fleet. The sun was shining, and I soon drew a focus on the gunpowder, which immediately blew up.” – Tracy

3. A Budding Scientist

• Early fascination with electricity, inspired possibly by his father’s friendship with Benjamin Franklin.
• Attended lectures on optics and electricity while in school, leading to his own experiments, such as constructing a Leyden jar and shocking classmates.
• Experienced ongoing nervous attacks from adolescence, growing into an anxious adult.

4. Transition to Scientific Gentleman

• After inheriting Fine Court and leaving law behind, Crosse devoted himself to chemistry, electricity, and mineralogy.
• Became friends and experimental partners with George John Singer, a respected amateur scientist.

5. Fine Court: The Experimental Estate

• Crosse transformed Fine Court into a laboratory:
  • Six or seven furnaces for refining metals
  • Silverware and glassware repurposed for scientific use
  • One-third mile of copper wire strung from tall trees, feeding a bank of 50 Leyden jars
  • Visitors described thunderous “bangs” and surreal electrical displays
• Neighbors’ Reactions:
  • Some thought Crosse a wizard or “thunder and lightning man,” feared his experiments, and claimed to see “devils... dancing on the wires” (21:55 – Holly)
  • Others believed in the healing powers of his electrical apparatus, attributing miraculous cures to his methods.

6. Personal Life and Household Dynamics

• Married Marianne Hamilton in 1809; had seven children (three died young).
• Household described as chaotic, with irregular routines and strained finances.
  • Quote from Ada Lovelace (24:17): “The dinner hour was an accident in the day’s arrangements.”
• Suffered numerous family losses over several years and relied on poetry, science, and friends for solace.

7. Public and Scientific Recognition

• Crosse gave occasional lectures but was generally reclusive and reluctant about public speaking.
• Rumor suggests Mary Shelley may have attended his lecture in 1814, providing possible inspiration for Frankenstein.

8. The 'Creation of Life' Controversy

• In 1836, Crosse’s electrocrystallization experiment with porous stone seemingly resulted in the spontaneous appearance of mites (acarus). He observed their development but never claimed to have created life, instead suspecting their eggs entered the experiment via air.
  • Crosse's Account (33:29): “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.”
• Scientist Richard Owen confirmed the creatures were cheese mites (genus Acarus), not new life forms.
• Crosse’s description was overheard or relayed to a newspaper, which sparked sensationalist claims that he had created life—a charge he always firmly denied.
  • Crosse’s Rebuttal (34:32): “I have never ventured an opinion on the cause of their birth... I was unable to form one.”

9. Backlash, Misreporting, and Replication Attempts

• Labeled a blasphemer and “Frankenstein” by media and public; faced ongoing accusations, even threats.
• Only one reported successful replication (by William Henry Weeks in 1841), though later assessment suggests flaws in the experiments.

10. Later Years, Second Marriage, and Legacy

• First wife Marianne died in 1846; deeply affected by her loss and that of his brother.
• Married Cornelia Augusta Hewitt Berkeley in 1850; she was much younger, admired his science, and became his assistant.
• Experimented with various applications of electricity, from purifying seawater to hangover cures.
• Attended the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851.
• Suffered a stroke in 1855 and died soon after; Cornelia published memorial books in his honor.

11. Enduring Memory and the Fate of Fine Court

• Most of Fine Court was destroyed by fire in 1894; some outbuildings and the music library remain.
• The site is now a National Trust property with walking trails and a used bookstore.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Eccentricity (07:41):
  • “We're gonna have a talk about this in our Friday episode.” – Holly
  • “Because your foolish co host may have tried something similar as an adult.” – Holly
• On Healing with Electricity (22:30):
  • “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.” – Cornelia Cross (read by Tracy)
• On Financial Struggles (24:17):
  • “My family were learned and honorable men as long as I can look back, but they had the happy knack of turning a guinea into a shilling, and I have inherited that faculty pretty strongly.” – Cross (read by Tracy)
• On Public Reaction (38:16):
  • “He was sorry to see that the faith of his neighbors could be overset by the claw of a mite.” – Cornelia Cross (read by Tracy)

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Important Timestamps

• Listener suggestion and research process: [03:26-05:52]
• Cross’s childhood and school days: [05:57-11:56]
• Early scientific interests: [10:26-11:56]
• Establishment as a country scientist: [12:57-13:14]
• Fine Court laboratory & neighbors’ fear: [19:23-22:58]
• Ada Lovelace’s impressions: [24:01-24:17]
• Inspiration for Frankenstein rumors: [25:31-26:36]
• British Association for the Advancement of Science & the beginning of fame: [26:36-27:14]
• Electrocrystallization and appearance of mites: [33:29-35:36]
• Media frenzy and Crosse’s denial: [35:36-38:16]
• Death and legacy: [41:20-43:08]
• Cross’s poetry, “The Three Trenches”: [43:08-43:57]

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Closing Note

The episode concludes with Tracy reading one of Cross’s own poems—“The Three Trenches”—showcasing his creative side and reminding listeners of the often-overlooked multidimensionality of historical figures. Holly and Tracy reflect on how Cross’s story combines science, misunderstanding, eccentricity, and humanity—a perfect fit for the show’s mission to revisit “the greatest and strangest” stories in history.

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For further exploration, listeners are encouraged to seek out Cornelia Cross’s memoirs and visit Fine Court if in Somerset for a touch of history amid the English countryside.

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

I built this company because men are tired of paying for fragmented care and without results. Every Joy and BL lab includes a visit with a licensed clinician who connects your symptoms to your biomarkers. You'll get a real plan that covers hormones, performance and confidence. If you're considering TRT or Enclomiphene, this is the most efficient way to do it. Get [e-mail] and use a promo code podcast new customers get 50% off their labs and for a limited time, you can take advantage of our $1ed or hair loss add ons with when you start TRT or Enclomiphene. Not available in all states. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Learn [e-mail] hi Kyle, could you draw.

[Holly Fry]

Up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Here's the link.

[Holly Fry]

But there was no link.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There was no business plan.

[Holly Fry]

I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff, here with the story.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Of entrepreneurship in the AI age.

[Holly Fry]

Listen as I attempt to build a.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Real startup run by fake people.

[Holly Fry]

Check out the second season of my.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

Happy Saturday. Our classic today has connections to two things that we 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We have a couple little updates not directly related to Andrew Cross in this episode we have a whole conversation about comments on our [e-mail] the website no longer has comments on it. 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 property. Today we say in the episode that the cafe 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.

[Holly Fry]

This originally came out on January 27, 2021. Enjoy. Welcome to stuff you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After we did our episode on John Cleaves 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 name. Literally sitting in the 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. Um, it also just came together with remarkable ease, which was great because I, I was taking a long weekend and I wanted, I needed to get all my stuff done. Uh, 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 [e-mail] it is often weeks or longer before we ever see anything on there. And we also do not have the ability to turn the. Because it's like a whole company wide thing to have the comments on there. So if you are gonna leave a comment on our website, we're probably not gonna 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. 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 goodn check because I literally made the connection just now.

[Holly Fry]

Dun dun, dun.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, thank you for suggesting this.

[Holly Fry]

So Andrew Cross was born on June 17, 1784 at Fine Court in Broomfield, Somerset, England. And the manor house at Fine Court was first built in the early 17th century, then it was added onto over the years. So by the time Cross was born, it had been his family's home for well over a hundred years. Andrew's mother was named Susanna and his father was Richard Cross, High Sheriff of Somerset.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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.

[Holly Fry]

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 hobble geese or hobble geese, we don't know for sure which. They made out of fir cones. And they imagined a whole society for the hobble geese, 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 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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 engagements, or are you always not on time?

[Holly Fry]

We're gonna have a talk about this in our Friday episode.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Super.

[Holly Fry]

Because your foolish co host may have tried something similar as an adult.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Oh, I'm so excited. 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 in its neighborhood from the earliest period down to the present time.

[Holly Fry]

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 Sayer or some of the other teachers. Plus, being extravagantly fond of fun included getting into mischief and playing jokes and pranks on people. 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 Sayer apparently did not appreciate this particular brand of silliness.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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. 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.

[Holly Fry]

At one point some of the boys at school decided to go on strike to try to get longer holiday breaks. But beyond just refusing to go to class, they were inspired by the British troops fighting in the French Revolutionary War. 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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 Sayers school, Andrew saw an advertisement for a lecture series, 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.

[Holly Fry]

Soon he and some schoolmates were shocking people with a Leyden jar that they made from an apothecary's bottle. So a Leyden 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

To be clear, this laden jar, shocking would not have been dangerous, but it would have been annoying. Andrew's father died in 1800 when 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.

[Holly Fry]

In 1802, Cross entered Brasenose 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 my life. It took some years to rub off the prejudices of class which I had acquired at Oxford.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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.

[Holly Fry]

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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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. 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.

[Holly Fry]

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. Hi Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Here's the link.

[Holly Fry]

But there was no link.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There was no business plan. It's not his fault.

[Holly Fry]

I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey Evan.

[Holly Fry]

Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

App or wherever you get your podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice. To the right, I'm sorry. To the left, I love you. From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Radhi Devlukia and I am the host of a really good Cry podcast. This week I am joined by Anna Runkle, also known as the crappy childhood fairy, a creator, teacher and guide helping people heal from the lasting emotional wounds of unsafe or chaotic childhoods. We talk about how the things we went through when we were younger can still show up in our adult lives, in our relationships, our reactions, even in the way we feel in our own bodies. And Anna opens up about her own story, what helped her notice the patterns she was stuck in and how she slowly started teaching her body that it is safe now. So when I got attacked, it was very random. Four guys jumped out of a car and just started beating me and my friend, and they broke my jaw and my teeth. I was unconscious. Then I woke up and I screamed. And I screamed because even though I didn't know who I was or where I was, something in me was just like, hold on, wait, they could kill me. And I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to get through this. And I did listen to a really good cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The social media trend that's landing some gen zers in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired. I'm going to take Francesca off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against Target that makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target and I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers whose trip to the White House ended in embarrassment. So refreshing to have the press secretary.

[Holly Fry]

After the last few years who's both intelligent and articulate.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You won't hear about these online stories in the mainstream media, but you can keep up with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things happening online in media and in politics with the Brad vs. Everyone podcast hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week I bring you on a wild ride through the most delulu takes on the Internet and criticizing the extremes of both sides from an independent perspective. Join in on the insanity and listen to the Brad vs. Everyone podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1807, Andrew Cross became fascinated with crystal formations in Hallwell Cavern, which is a limestone crevice in Broomfield not far from where he lived. The entrance to this cavern has since been filled in, and in Cross's words, 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.

[Holly Fry]

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 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 Electro Winning. Electro winning, which, by the way, sounds like a great band name, was first developed by Sir Humphry Davy, who came up in our John Cleave Sims episode. Everything connects in history.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. Davey was one of the people who thought John Cleave Sims did not know what he was talking about, because he. He didn't. As Cross experimented, though, more and more 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 in the tallest trees on the grounds. And he connected all that to about 50 Leyden jars in the organ loft of the music room.

[Holly Fry]

This setup became particularly dramatic in foggy or stormy weather. Sir Richard Phillips visited Fine Core and relayed a conversation with Cross. He told me that sometimes the current was so great as to charge and discharge 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 Leyden jars by turning a device with a crank.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Here is how a visitor described Fine Court during all this. Here was an immense number of jars and gallipots 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. 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. Nevertheless, your host does not fear. He approaches as boldly as if the flowing stream of fire were a harmless spark.

[Holly Fry]

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.

[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 find court and the complaint in the throat was entirely removed.

[Holly Fry]

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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We will get back to Cornelia in a bit. Since they got married later on in Andrew's life, his first wife was Marianne 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.

[Holly Fry]

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, 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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 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, injudicious in his expenditure.

[Holly Fry]

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. Sayers 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So Cross did talk about his work in public, but not really all that often and somewhat reluctantly. On December 28th of 1814, he gave an address at Garnerin'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 a hundred percent clear whether Garnerens 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. 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.

[Holly Fry]

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. So interesting.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

All this attention made Cross fairly uncomfortable, though. In his words, quote, I slipped away out of it all and he went home before the meeting was over.

[Holly Fry]

It was not long before he was getting even more attention though. And we'll talk more about that after a sponsor break. Hi Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Here's the link.

[Holly Fry]

But there was no link.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There was no business plan. It's not his fault.

[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 laws. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way. And why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you. From Revisionist History. This is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History. The Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The social media trend that's landing some gen zers in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired. I'm gonna take Francesca off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against the Target. That makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target and I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers whose trip to the White House ended in embarrassment. So refreshing to have the press secretary.

[Holly Fry]

After the last few years who's both intelligent and articulate.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You won't hear about these online stories in the mainstream media, but you can keep up with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things happening online in media and in politics with the Bradford versus Everyone podcast hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week, I bring you on a wild ride through the most delulu takes on the Internet, criticizing the extremes of both sides from an independent perspective. Join in on the insanity and listen to the Brad vs. Everyone podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Like if we're on the air here and I literally have my contract here and I'm looking at, you know, as soon as I sign this, I'm gonna get a seven figure check. I've told them I won't be working here in two weeks.

[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

I really just had never experienced anything like what was going on in the city as far as, like, you know, seeing so many young, black, affluent creatives in all walks of life.

[Holly Fry]

The church had dwindled almost to nothing.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And God said, this is your assignment. And that's like, how, you know, like.

[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

Listen to Atlanta is on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[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 31st 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. Richie. I could not find the text of this article, but Richie apparently criticized Cross for framing his work as discoveries when other people had discovered these things many years before. Richie also described Cross's work in a way that just wasn't very accurate.

[Holly Fry]

Cross's tone is kind of along the lines of, you were there at the meeting, Dr. Richie, 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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, 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.

[Holly Fry]

In his words, 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 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He went on to write, quote, in the course of a few weeks, about a hundred of them made their appearance on the stone. I examined them with a microscope and observed. The smaller ones appeared to have only six legs, the larger ones eight.

[Holly Fry]

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, I have never ventured an opinion on the cause of their birth. And for a very good reason, I was unable to form one.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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. 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 Acaris. Cross called them Acarus galvanicus.

[Holly Fry]

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 were printing sensationalized reports that Andrew Cross of Somerset had used electricity to create life.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So to be clear, Andrew Cross did make some far fetched claims during his lifetime. 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 sweet 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.

[Holly Fry]

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 which would possibly have proved fatal had I not struggled against it by a strong effort of mind.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You cannot cure rabies with exercise and positive thinking.

[Holly Fry]

It would just never occur to you to be like, I think I might have rabies. You know what I should do? Go shooting. That's going to help.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As an anxious person, I can totally see myself being like, oh no, this thing is happening to me. We don't really know if Dr. Kinglake really did think that he had somehow staved off an attack of rabies or if Kinglake was humoring him.

[Holly Fry]

That's right, dear, you cured yourself.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

But even though he had this whole story about the cat and the rabies, 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.

[Holly Fry]

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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Other people tried to replicate Cross's results, but only one, William Henry Weeks of Sandwich, had any success. And that happened in 1840. 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 25, 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 Acaris crossi after Andrew Cross.

[Holly Fry]

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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As all of this was happening, several members of Cross's family were seriously ill. His wife, Marianne 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.

[Holly Fry]

While he was in London, he met Cornelia Augusta Hewitt Berkeley, who was a fan of his work. In her words, 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 that mysterious agent, electricity, had so excited my imagination. She goes on to say that she was disappointed that at their first meeting he didn't talk about electricity. Perhaps he was hungry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I love that. Andrew and Cornelia got married in 1850. He was 66 and she was 23. They went back to Fine Court, where they had a son in 1852, followed by two more children, bringing his total surviving children to 10.

[Holly Fry]

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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1851, the crosses went to the Great Exhibition in London 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.

[Holly Fry]

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 6 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There, 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.

[Holly Fry]

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, 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 a tea room currently only takeout due to the COVID 19 pandemic.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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 or the next I greet a fair array serenely smiling As a summer's day to pass the third Alas, how few contrive and of those dearest few, how few survive. That is Andrew Cross. This is one of those topics that if I had a do over and a time machine, I would have saved this for like a tour show because it's so fun.

[Holly Fry]

It's very, very fun.

[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 historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.