The Electrician
The Electrician was a London-based weekly magazine about electricity and engineering. It had two runs: the first from 1861 to 1863, and after a 15-year break, a second run from 1878 to 1952.
The early edition (1861–1863) called itself a weekly journal of Telegraphy, Electricity, and Applied Chemistry and was published by Thomas Piper. The later edition (starting in 1878) was published by James Gray for John Pender and James Anderson of the Eastern Telegraph Company and described itself as a weekly illustrated journal of electrical engineering, industry and science, with more emphasis on theoretical topics like electromagnetism.
The Electrician played a key role in publishing important work. It is remembered for printing Oliver Heaviside’s writings, including the first presentations of the telegrapher’s equations, which are still used in radio engineering. In the late 19th century, The Electrician Printing and Publication Company Limited produced shorter electrical engineering books, such as Heaviside’s Electromagnetic Theory (1893–1912) and Lodge’s The Work of Hertz and Some of His Successors (1894). Many papers in The Electrician were originally presented elsewhere and then published in full here.
The magazine became well known and was frequently cited in major science publications like Nature and Scientific American. There was also an American magazine called The Electrician (1889–1895) in New York, which later merged into Electrical World.
After the 1952 end of the magazine, the company continued publishing books on physics and electrical engineering until 1959.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:54 (CET).