Richard Laming

Who was Richard Laming?

Richard Laming was a British surgeon, natural philosopher, inventor, chemist and industrialist.

There is some uncertainty about his origins. It is believed that he was born Margate, England 17 August 1799, the son of James Laming, a packet owner, and Sarah Walton. He had an elder brother James, born 1791, who was a prosperous merchant. In 1825, Richard qualified for membership of the Royal College of Surgeons, and he established a practice in London.

During his leisure moments, Richard developed an interest in the theory of electricity. Between 1838 and 1851 he published a series of papers speculating about the electrical makeup of atoms. He hypothesized that there existed sub-atomic particles of unit charge; perhaps one of the first persons ever to do so. He suggested that the atom was made up of a core of material surrounded by concentric shells of these electrical 'atoms', or particles. He also believed that these particles could be added or subtracted to an atom, changing its charge.

Around 1844, he suggested a mechanism for an insulator as an atom surrounded by a "perfect external spherical strata" of electrical particles.