John Henry Pepper

John Henry "Professor" Pepper (17 June 1821 – 25 March 1900) was a British scientist and inventor who toured the English-speaking world with his scientific demonstrations. He entertained the public, royalty, and fellow scientists with a wide range of technological innovations. He is primarily remembered for developing the projection technique known as Pepper's ghost, building a large-scale version of the concept by Henry Dircks, which Pepper first publicly demonstrated during an 1862 Christmas Eve theatrical production of the Charles Dickens novella, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, causing a sensation among those in attendance at the Regent Street theatre in London.

Pepper also oversaw the introduction of evening lectures at the Royal Polytechnic Institution (University of Westminster) and wrote several important science education books, one of which is regarded as a significant step towards the understanding of continental drift. While in Australia he tried unsuccessfully to make it rain using electrical conduction and large explosions.

Early life Pepper was born in Westminster, London and educated at King's College School. While there he became interested in chemistry, as taught by John Thomas Cooper. Cooper acted as a mentor to Pepper, who went on to become an assistant lecturer at the Grainger School of Medicine at the age of 19. In around 1843 he was elected a Fellow of the Chemical Society.

Career in England A drawing by G.F. Sargeant, published in 1847, showing the interior of the Royal Polytechnic Institution Pepper delivered his first lecture at the Royal Polytechnic Institution in 1847 and went on to take the role of analytical chemist and lecturer the year after. By the early 1850s he was its director. Pepper became a highly regarded science performer and often went by the name "Professor Pepper". He regularly demonstrated a range of scientific and technological innovations with the intention of entertaining and educating the audience about how they worked. He used many of these to expose the trickery behind deceptive magic, and became famous for a new technique now known as "Pepper's ghost".

Pepper's ghost

Liverpudlian engineer Henry Dircks is believed to have devised a method of projecting an actor onto a stage using a sheet of glass and a clever use of lighting, calling the technique "Dircksian Phantasmagoria". The actor would then have an ethereal, ghost-like appearance while seemingly able to perform alongside other actors. Pepper saw the concept and replicated it on a larger scale, taking out a joint patent with Dircks. Pepper debuted his creation with a Christmas Eve production of the Charles Dickens play The Haunted Man in 1862 and Dircks signed over all financial rights to Pepper.

Authoring Pepper wrote eleven popular science books, starting with his first publications in the 1850s. They arrived in Melbourne on 8 July 1879 and Pepper gave his first lecture just four days later. Interest in his demonstrations began to wane after a month, so he took his show to Sydney. Pepper incorporated the ghost into his shows, amazing his audiences for a while but, once again, the public desire for his shows tailed off after a month. For a time he tried his hand as playwright, producer, and actor, putting on a romantic drama called Hermes and the Alchymist. The show was poorly received and lasted only a few weeks. While there Pepper continued to deliver lectures and is believed to have been the first person to formally teach chemistry in the state.

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The summer of 1882 brought a drought to the south-east of Queensland with little rain and intense temperatures. Pepper believed that a scientific solution to the problem might be possible and decided to attempt a rainmaking experiment. He took out a front page advertisement in the 30 January 1882 issue of The Brisbane Courier to publicise the event, scheduled for 4 February 1882 at the Eagle Farm Racecourse. Pepper felt very badly treated by fellow scientists and the general public and in a letter written to The Brisbane Courier dated 27 May 1882 he stated: "My experiment in Queensland was received with such derision and insults that in the face of those hard steely railings I shall leave to others the honour and expense of trying to do good by gently persuading the clouds to drop fatness."

In the coming years, other scientists attempted what Pepper called "cloud compelling" (see weather modification). In another letter to The Brisbane Courier in April 1884, Pepper referred to one of them, saying that he hoped the scientist would "not be unappreciated or treated with the ribald and narrowminded jokes and judgments that were showered on my head."

Death Pepper returned to England in 1889 to enjoy his retirement. He died in Leytonstone on 25 March 1900.