Born in Camden Town. Aged 12 the family could no longer afford to send him to school so he continued studying on his own. Thus he was largely self-taught, no secondary education or university.
In 1847 his mother’s sister married Charles Wheatstone who influenced the careers of Oliver and his brother Arthur in the direction of telegraphy. In 1868 Heaviside became a telegraph operator in Denmark with the Danish-Norwegian-English Telegraph Company. By 1871 he was back in England as a chief operator. 1874 he was elected Associate Member of the Society of Telegraph Engineers (later the Institution of Electrical Engineers).
1874 he left the cable company to live with his parents again. He spent the rest of his life as an unpaid researcher into telegraphy, an important topic given the new use of submarine cabling. He also studied James Clerk Maxwell’s 1873 Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, significantly developing the maths.
In 1876 he moved with his parents to 3 St Augustine’s Road, then in 1889 they relocated to Devon, living above his brother's music shop. Oliver continued to live in the area after his parent's deaths in 1894 and 96. Living on his own for almost 10 years he became increasingly eccentric. He died in a Torquay nursing home.
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