He is best known for the invention of the Wilberforce pendulum, which exhibits a curious motion in which periods of purely rotational oscillation gradually alternate with periods of purely up and down oscillation.
Lionel Robert Wilberforce was born in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria to his mother Fanny Flash and his father who was Edward Wilberforce (1834–1914).
He was educated in England and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1884.
[1] He worked with J. J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and was appointed lecturer in 1900.
In 1896 he published his work on vibrations of a loaded spiral spring, today known as Wilberforce pendulum.