What profession did Faraday work in before becoming a scientist?

Before becoming a scientist, Michael Faraday worked as a bookbinder. At age 14, he was apprenticed to George Riebau, a bookbinder and bookseller in London, and remained in that apprenticeship for seven years.

The job unexpectedly gave Faraday access to scientific ideas. While binding books, he read works on electricity, chemistry, and natural philosophy. He also performed experiments in his spare time and made careful notes, building an education largely on his own because he had received little formal schooling.

Faraday’s path changed after he attended lectures by the chemist Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution. Faraday took detailed notes, bound them into a volume, and sent them to Davy. In 1813, Davy hired him as a chemical assistant, beginning Faraday’s professional scientific career.

The answer is sometimes oversimplified as “book seller,” but bookbinder is the precise trade associated with his apprenticeship. His early work also explains why books played such an important role in his self-education. Faraday later became a leading physicist and chemist despite lacking a university education.