Preston, Thomas (died c. 1563)

English composer. He was probably organist and master of the choristers, Magdalen College, Oxford, and is recorded as having played at Windsor Chapel in 1558 and 1559. He wrote a large amount of organ music for the Latin rite, including the Proper of the Mass for Easter Day (incomplete).

Preston, Thomas (1860–1900)

Northern Irish physicist who established empirical rules for the analysis of spectral lines, which are still associated with his name. He discovered the Anomalous Zeeman Effect, a phenomenon noted when the spectral lines of elements were studied in the presence or absence of a magnetic field. His authoritative textbooks The Theory of Light (1890) and The Theory of Heat (1894) remained in continuous use for over 50 years.

Preston was born in Kilmore, County Armagh. He enrolled in Trinity College, Dublin, in 1881, and worked under the physicist George Fitzgerald, known for his work in electromagnetics. He later won the second Boyle Medal presented by the Royal Dublin Society, but died of a perforated ulcer just as he was reaching the height of his academic powers.