On this day in history - Edinburgh scientist Balfour Stewart died

Edinburgh scientist Balfour Stewart died on 19 December 1887, during a journey to his country estates in Ireland, where he'd hoped to spend Christmas. Stewart was director of the Kew Observatory and achieved fame through his research on terrestrial magnetism, which he wrote up into an essay for the nineteenth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

He was awarded the Rumford Medal for his work on radiant heat, during which he established that radiation doesn't take place just on the surface of an object, but throughout. Stewart was devoted to the Christian faith and co-wrote The Unseen Universe with Professor P G Tait. The book, initially published anonymously, sought to argue that religion and scientific beliefs did not have to be incompatable.

QUICK LINK: Compulsive explorers: five Scots who stepped off the map