Andrew Crosse

Andrew Crosse (1784-1855) was a British amateur scientist who pioneered electrical experimentation in the early nineteenth century, working in electrocrystallization and atmospheric electricity from an extensive laboratory at his estate, Fyne Court, in Somerset. He was among the early developers of large voltaic piles alongside Humphry Davy, and he became known, and was locally nicknamed the thunder and lightning man, for dramatic electrical demonstrations, most famously an 1836 electrocrystallization experiment in which insects unexpectedly appeared.