HARRIS, SIR WILLIAM SNOW English electrician, was born at Plymouth on April 1, 1 i 91. He set up as a medical practitioner in Plymouth but gave this up to study elec tricity. In 1820 he invented a new method of arranging the light ning conductors of ships, but the method was not adopted by the Government for the Royal navy until 1847. He was then knighted and later received a grant of f 5,000. Harris published a number of papers on general electricity and was the author of manuals on Electricity, Galvanism and Magnetism published between 1848 and 1856. He died at Plymouth on Jan. 22, 1867.
Harris' Treatise on Frictional Electricity was published posthumously in 1867, with a memoir of the author by Charles Tomlinson.