When we think of lightning and kites, the name that usually flashes across history is Benjamin Franklin. But across the Atlantic, in a small town in southwest France, Jacques de Romas was chasing storms of his own—and arguably beat Franklin to the punch.
Born in 1713 in Nérac, de Romas wasn’t a professional scientist. He was a self-taught experimenter, a provincial intellectual in the Age of Enlightenment, fascinated by the invisible forces that moved the heavens—and threatened his village rooftops. He was obsessed with lightning. Not just as weather, but as electricity.
This was a radical idea in the 18th century. At the time, electricity was still more parlor trick than science. People knew how to generate static shocks and light up little devices, but few imagined it could be connected to the raw, terrifying power of a thunderstorm. De Romas had a theory—and he was willing to risk his life to prove it.
In the early 1750s, just as Franklin was preparing his famous kite experiment, de Romas constructed massive metal rods—up to 40 meters tall—designed to “catch” lightning. These weren’t gentle probes. These were antennas of defiance, set into the earth and reaching skyward, grounded to pull down the storm.
And it worked.
During a thunderstorm in 1753, de Romas observed electric sparks leaping from the end of his wire, powerful enough to ignite materials. He wrote detailed observations, published findings, and even shared them with the Académie des Sciences in Paris. In 1755, he was awarded a royal pension for his discoveries. He hadn’t just proven that lightning was electrical—he had built one of the world’s first lightning rods in the process.
So why don’t we remember him?
Partly because he lacked Franklin’s flair for public relations. And partly because scientific credit in the 18th century was fiercely competitive—and regional figures like de Romas often got edged out of the spotlight. But in France, among the early “electricians,” his name mattered. He was seen as a pioneer, a man who took on the sky with wire and willpower.
Today, Jacques de Romas is a footnote in most science books. But in his time, he was a storm chaser in the truest sense: one of the first people to look at lightning not with fear—but with fascination.
And maybe, just maybe, the man who brought electricity home before Franklin ever flew his kite.
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