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British physician

Sir William Snow Harris (1 April 1791 – 22 January 1867) was a British physician and electrical researcher, and noted for his invention of a successful system of lightning conductors for ships. It took many years of campaigning, research and successful testing before the British Royal Navy changed to Harris's conductors from their previous less effective system. One of the successful test vessels was which survived lightning strikes unharmed on her famous voyage with Charles Darwin.

Harris was born in Plymouth on 1 April 1791. His family was well established as solicitors in the town, and he went to Plymouth Grammar School. Harris was curator of apparatus in the museum of The Plymouth Institution (now The Plymouth Athenaeum) and held the office of President twice. His work on lightning conductors for ships gained him a government annuity of £300 "in consideration of services in the cultivation of science", and to overcome continued objections to his proposals he published an 1843 work on Thunderstorms, as well as contributing papers to The Nautical Magazine on lightning damage. He was knighted in 1847 after the system had been adopted and shown successful, and was given a grant of £5,000. Though his continued research did not find new discoveries, his manuals of Electricity, Galvanism and Magnetism were published between 1848 and 1856 and went through several editions. When he died in Plymouth on 22 January 1867 he had a Treatise on Frictional Electricity in preparation, and it was published later that year.

The lightning rod invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1752 suggested a way of avoiding the common problem of lightning causing damage to the wooden sailing ships of the period. In Britain, the Royal Navy chose a protection system with a chain draped into the sea from the top of the mast as a lightning conductor. This system proved unsatisfactory: the chain was only supposed to be raised up the mast when lightning was anticipated, and lightning often struck unexpectedly. When the chain was raised it was a nuisance to seamen aloft in the rigging to deal with the square rigged sails, and even when it was raised, lightning strokes would sometimes damage the chain or the ship. There were also fears that the conductors would attract lightning to the ship, and prejudices against their use. The captain, Robert FitzRoy, had been given command in the middle of the first expedition after the previous captain committed suicide. Before being given that command, FitzRoy had been a lieutenant on board HMS Thetis in Rio harbour when her foremast was struck by lightning. The "fore topmast was shivered into a mere collection of splinters" and the foremast irreparably damaged, delaying the ship for almost two months while "the foremast was taken out afterwards, and replaced by another, purchased from the Brazilian government at a great expense." Near the end of 1831, while the Beagle was still being fitted out at Devonport in preparation for sailing, the recently graduated Charles Darwin arrived in Plymouth to take up the opportunity of sailing on the ship as a self funded gentleman naturalist who would be a companion to the captain while the ship was at sea, and who would make his own expeditions inland while the ship's crew was surveying the coasts. and wrote to tell his university tutor John Stevens Henslow about his progress, noting that he had met "one or two pleasant people, foremost of whom is Mr. Thunder & Lightning Harris, whom I daresay you have heard of." In his diary he noted that on the evening of 21 November he attended a "popular lecture from Mr Harris on his lightning conductors" at the Athenaeum. Harris used an "Electric machine" for a thunder cloud and a tub of water for the sea, then with "a toy for a line of battle ship he showed the whole process of it being struck by lightning & most satisfactorily proved how completely his plan protects the vessel from any bad consequences. This plan consists in having plates of Copper folding over each other, let in the masts & yards & so connected to the water beneath. — The principle, from which these advantages are derived, owes its utility, to the fact that the Electric fluid is weakened by being transmitted over a large surface to such an extent that no effects are perceived, even when the mast is struck by the lightning. — The Beagle is fitted with conductors on this plan; it is very probable, we shall be the means of trying & I hope proving the utility of its effects." The voyage took almost five years, and although the Beagle was frequently exposed to lightning and was thought to have been struck by lightning on at least two occasions, "when—at the instant of a vivid flash of lightning, accompanied by a crashing peal of thunder—a hissing sound was heard on the masts; and a strange, though very slightly tremulous, motion in the ship indicated that something unusual had happened", there was never the "slightest damage". quote|No objection which appears to me valid, has yet been raised against them; and were I allowed to choose between having masts so fitted and the contrary, I should not have the slightest hesitation in deciding on those with Mr. Harris's conductors. Whether they might be farther improved, as to position and other details, is for their ingenious inventor to consider and determine. He has already devoted so many years of valuable time and attention to the very important subject of defending ships against the stroke of electricity; and has succeeded so well for the benefit of others—at great inconvenience and expense to himself—that it is earnestly to be hoped that the Government, on behalf of this great maritime country, will, at the least, indemnify him for time employed and private funds expended in a public service of so useful and necessary a character.|FitzRoy, 1839.