Count Rumford

B ENJAMIN Thompson, born in 1754 in Woburn, Massachusetts, of unprepossessing New England parents, led one of the most amazing lives in the eighteenth century. Beginning at the age of thirteen as a warehouse apprentice in Salem, Massachusetts, he climbed from the position of major in the New Hampshire militia to that of British Undersecretary of State for the Northern Department, to a colonelcy in the British Army, and to a knighthood conferred by King George III. He became the favorite of the Elector of Bavaria, and rose through the highest offices of state in that country to be made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. His genius for public administration was almost unequalled, and he ranks as one of the most important scientists of his age. Material only recently available shows that one of his favorite methods of seeking rewards in high places was by serving as a military and political informer

Political science · History of Science and Medicine · History of Science and Natural History