ABSTRACT
To be sure, while the concept of a fundamental subunit of electricity proved short lived, a corresponding role for the ubiquitous electron vis-a-vis negative electricity was hardly in doubt by 1900. This was the case despite a lingering epistemological dispute as late as 1910 in certain Continental circles, both over the reality of atoms generally and the discrete nature of electricity particular. The evidence for a unique value of the charge-to-mass ratio for the electron from multifarious glow discharge studies was thanks to Thomson. Augmented by separate measurements of e by Townsend, C T R and H A Wilson, and by the 'Prof himself, they indicated a subatomic carrier of negative electricity in remarkably good agreement with the bound charges implicated in the magneto-optic of Zeeman and Lorentz.
