John Bevis

John Bevis (1695 to 1771) was an English medical doctor, electrical researcher and astronomer, best known for discovering the Crab Nebula in 1731. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, taking his B.A. in 1715 and M.A. in 1718. In 1757 he published The History and Philosophy of Earthquakes, the first survey of its kind, collecting accounts of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake from diverse authentic sources, which John Michell later used. That year the tobacconist Thomas Hughes asked him why flowers would not grow in his garden at Bagnigge House in London, and he found the well water full of iron, which led to a second well and the popular spa Bagnigge Wells. When the Leyden jar reached Britain in 1746 he worked with William Watson to refine it, replacing the water with lead shot and later lining the glass with lead, and they tested the speed of electricity over nearly four kilometres of wire without detecting any delay. They corresponded with Benjamin Franklin and his Philadelphia group. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in November 1765.