While working on the physical analysis of Utopia, my project partner Erin Aults and I talked about whether it would be possible to prove this book was owned by the Michael Faraday who was one of the most celebrated scientists of the 19th century. It was Erin who discovered Faraday's connection with the Blaikley family. Artist Alexander Blaikley created a famous painting of Faraday lecturing that now hangs in the Royal Institution in London. Faraday and Blaikley were both members of the Sandemanian or Glassite church, a small, conservative sect whose members often married within the small world of Sandemanians. Faraday married Sarah Barnard, whose brother John married Faraday's sister Margaret.
The Faradays had no children of their own, but were very close to John and Margaret's daughters, Jane and Rachel Barnard. Rachel married Alexander Blaikley's son David James. After his and Sarah's deaths, Michael Faraday's personal papers and many of his belongings went to Jane, who had nursed him in his last illness. After the deaths of Jane and Rachel, David James Blaikley donated Faraday's papers to the archives of the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London, where they remain today.
This bookplate is strong evidence this volume of Utopia was indeed owned by Michael Faraday, the discoverer of the principles of electromagnetic force, and was among his personal possessions that passed to David James Blaikley, who added his name to the bookplate in August of 1876.