Bright sparks: exhibition traces electricity's allure for centuries of innovators

From the Georgian medic who shocked his patients to scientists, artists and inventors, the Wellcome's exhibition explores our relationship with electricity

There must have been gasps of astonishment - and possibly of well-justified terror - in Georgian Lancashire when John Fell sent a charge through his frame of mahogany, glass, black silk and tin foil, and the word "electricity" lit up in letters of fire.

"This Experiment, when performed in the dark, which it always should be, presents a pleasing spectacle," he wrote.