In 1889, Liverpool's first Professor of Physics, Oliver Lodge, was invited to form a society for the cultivation of physics in the city. Lodge is commonly regarded as a conservative in comparison with many of the physicists of his time, a time when the most fundamental theories and discoveries about the nature of space, matter and time were being made. However, this book argues that this view needs to be modified. It advances the idea that Lodge's theory of "ether", his attempt to provide a unified explanation for the nuclear physics, has been somewhat revived by recent work in quantum electro-dynamics. However, the book stresses that no assessment of Lodge's can be complete without considering his influence as an educator and expounder of comlex ideas of which he had a remarkable grasp which he could communicate with great lucidity.