He became a student at Glasgow University when only 11 years old, and later became Professor of Natural Philosophy there - a position he held for 50 years. He was offered, and declined, the Cavendish Chair at Cambridge three times, but instead persuaded all the major scientists of the time to come to Glasgow.

Kelvin had an excellent grasp of all aspects of physics: heat, light, sound, electricity. In his early days he performed experiments in electric lighting, thermodynamics and electrodynamics. He studied radioactivity, and encouraged the Curies in their experiments with radium.

He was a very talented scientific insturment designer, and later became associated with James White's company (founded in 1849), when he realised many of the instruments he was devising in the laboratory could be adapted for manufacture. Early on, they made rangefinders for Professors Barr and Stroud (who had formed a company, Barr and Stroud, in response to an advert for an efficient rangefinder placed by the War Office in 1888).

It was Kelvin's involvement in submarine telegraphy, and the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866, which made him internationally famous however, as well as his redesigned nautical compass and sounding equipment

He had his own steam yacht (the Lalla Rookh), on which he held many social events as well as a number of scientific inquiries.

Lord Kelvin died in 1907, aged 83.