| Activity | Professor of physics, Royal College of Science, Dublin. Source:
The family returned to England in 1848 and in 1855 went to Manchester, where William attended Old Trafford grammar school. Subsequently he took classes in chemistry and physics at the Royal College of Chemistry, London. In 1863 he became assistant to John Tyndall at the Royal Institution. He was then successively science master at the International College, London (1867–9), lecturer on physics at the Royal School of Naval Architecture (1869–73), and professor of physics at the Royal College of Science, Dublin (1873–1910).
Though not in the vanguard of physical research, Barrett was none the less a highly effective practical physicist and was especially known for two lines of research. The first was his early work on ‘sensitive flames’ and their uses in acoustic demonstrations. The second was a long line of studies of the electrical, magnetic, and thermal properties of metals, particularly iron and iron alloys. They included pioneering experiments (from 1873 onwards) on recalescence and on the discovery of the shortening of nickel through magnetization (1882); and a series of investigations (1896–1902), with W. Brown and R. A. Hadfield, of the electrical and magnetic behaviour of a large number of iron alloys. These led to the discovery of a silicon–iron alloy, later known under the trade name Stalloy, with high magnetic permeability and low hysteresis, which proved of great value in the construction of parts of electrical machinery subject to alternating magnetic fields, and of an iron–nickel alloy (Permaloy) with similar properties. Barrett was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1899 (he was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Dublin Society) and was knighted in 1912.
In later years, following signs of incipient cataracts in his own eyes, Barrett became interested in various problems in the physics of vision. In 1905–8 he published the results of his experiments with a simple device of his own invention, the ‘entoptiscope’, which enabled him to work out the nature, location, and size of the causative agents within the eye of various visual phenomena, for example muscae volitantes (‘floaters’), and Purkinje figures (the shadows of retinal blood vessels).
It is, however, for his leading part in the foundation of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) that Barrett is now principally remembered. In September 1876 he gave before the anthropological section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science a paper describing some of his experiences. It aroused a good deal of controversy, but he continued to collect materials and to experiment. On 7 July 1881 he published in Nature a preliminary account of his experiments on thought transference. Later that year, following a talk with E. Dawson Rogers, a prominent spiritualist, he took up the latter's suggestion that leading scientists and scholars might be drawn into a society for the scientific investigation of psychic phenomena. Between them they assembled a conference of interested persons in London on 5 and 6 January 1882 and the SPR was founded. For the first year or two Barrett played a central role in the SPR's activities, and in 1884 he was instrumental in founding a similar society in the United States. Thereafter his involvement diminished, though he was a regular contributor of articles and case reports to the SPR's publications, and was president in 1904. |
| Relationships | son of a Congregational minister, the Revd William Garland Barrett (1812–1865), missionary for the London Missionary Society, and his wife, Martha Barrett, née Fletcher (1811?–1893).
Sister Rosa Mary Barrett was the social reformer
1916 married Dr. Florence Elizabeth Willey (1867 - 1945) a distinguished gynaecologist |