In 1831, Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction at the Royal Institution in London, the principle that a changing magnetic field generates an electric current. By moving a magnet through a coil of wire, Faraday demonstrated that electricity could be produced without any battery or chemical reaction, opening the possibility of generating electrical power from mechanical motion. This discovery, made in his laboratory in Albemarle Street, is the fundamental principle behind virtually all electrical generators used today.

Faraday's discovery of induction, the generation of electrical force from motion, provided Victorian poets with a powerful new metaphor for how change and movement in the external world could generate inner illumination. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who was deeply interested in contemporary science, incorporated electromagnetic imagery into his poetry, and the broader Victorian poetic imagination seized on induction as a model for how experience could generate understanding. The principle that invisible fields of force pervaded all space also resonated with the Victorian sense of a world alive with unseen energies and connections.