Megan Watts Hughes

"Tree Form" - Hughes created this picture using an eidophone which allowed the resonance of sound to be visualised.

Megan [Margaret] Watts Hughes (12 February 1842 – 29 October 1907) was a Welsh singer, songwriter, scientist and philanthropist. Her name appears as Margaret, the equivalent of the Welsh name Megan, in several publications. She was recognised by certain sources as the first to experiment with and observe the phenomenon of visualizing sound, using a device she invented called an "eidophone".

Early life and musical career

Megan Watts was born in Dowlais, Glamorgan[shire], At Mountford House in Barnsbury Square, Islington, she founded a "Home for Little Boys".

In a newspaper article of 1898, composer Joseph Parry referred to Megan Watts Hughes as being one of "our greatest vocalists". She had accompanied Parry on a "musical tour" of North Wales after leaving the Royal Academy of Music, and once appeared with Jenny Lind, one of the greatest sopranos of the day (who had also been trained by García). Lind is supposed to have said of her: "I have never met anyone so related to me in the art of music. Two sisters only have I in the art-Madame Schumann and Mrs. Megan Watts-Hughes."

"Voice-figures"

Her scientific observations were first published in an 1891 Century Magazine article under the name Margaret Watts Hughes. This process would later be linked to the independent invention of research begun by Ernst Chladni, who used powder rather than liquid to facilitate the visual patterns. Watts Hughes' work was not only demonstrated at a scientific meeting of the Royal Society, Her work along with Ernst Chladni became progenitors of a field called cymatics forwarded by Swiss scientist Hans Jenny and later studied by scientists at MIT.

British biophysicist Jill Purce investigated the effects of vibration on particles and water, following up on the findings of Chaldni and Watts Hughes.