Chapter VI: Life of Davy

1778 to 1829.

The history of thirteen years of the life of Davy, like that of fifty of the life of Faraday, is closely interwoven with the history of the Royal Institution. Their lives were the life of the place; and hence, to complete the history of the Institution to the time of Faraday, a sketch of Davy and his scientific life must be given here.

Humphry Davy was born on December 17, 1778, at Penzance. He was the son of a wood carver and was apprenticed to a surgeon.

Mr. Davies Gilbert heard that the boy was fond of making chemical experiments. He encouraged him and spoke of him to Dr. Beddoes, Professor of Geology and Chemistry at Oxford, who happened to be at work upon the ‘Geology of Cornwall.’

Afterwards Dr. Beddoes established the Pneumatic Institution at Clifton, and he required an assistant to prepare the gases and superintend the Pneumatic Hospital, and Mr. Gilbert proposed Davy. He went on October 2, 1798, ‘to superintend experiments on the medical powers of factitious airs or gases.’

Davy thus wrote to Mr. Davies Gilbert:

November 12, 1798.

I have purposely delayed writing until I could communicate to
you some intelligence of importance concerning the new Pneumatic
Institution. The speedy execution of the plan will, I think,
interest you both as a subscriber and a friend to science and
mankind. The present subscription is, we suppose, nearly adequate
to the purpose of investigating the medicinal powers of factitious
airs. It still continues to increase, and we may hope for the
ability of pursuing the investigation to its full extent. We are
negotiating for a house in Downe Square, the proximity of which to
Bristol and its general situation and advantages render it very
suitable for the purpose. The funds will, I suppose, enable us to
provide for eight or ten patients in the Hospital, and for as many
out of it as we can procure.

We shall try the gases in every possible way.

* * * * *

We are printing in Bristol the first volume of the ‘West Country
Collection,’ which will, I suppose, be out the beginning of January.

* * * * *

Believe me, dear Sir, with affection and respect, truly yours,

HUMPHRY DAVY.

The first two hundred pages of this collection, constituting very nearly half the volume, consist of essays of Davy on ‘Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light,’ on ‘Phos-Oxygen or Oxygen and its Combinations,’ and on the ‘Theory of Respiration.’

He wrote on February 22, 1799, to Davies Gilbert:

DEAR FRIEND,--(For I love you too well to call you by a more
ceremonious name), I have delayed writing to you, expecting
that some of our experiments would produce results worthy of
communication.

I am now as much convinced of the non-existence of caloric as I am
of the existence of light.

Our laboratory in the Pneumatic Institution is nearly finished.

I hope the gaseous oxide of azote will prove to be a specific
stimulus for the absorbents.

* * * * *

I know of little general scientific news. Berthollet makes
sulphuretted hydrogen out to be an acid.

* * * * *

I remain, with affection and respect, yours,

HUMPHRY DAVY.

Again on April 10, 1799, to Mr. Gilbert, writing of light and heat, he said:

The supposition of active powers common to all matter from the
different modifications of which all the phenomena of its changes
result, appears to me more reasonable than the assumption of
certain imaginary fluids, alone endowed with active powers, and
bearing the same relation to common matter as the vulgar philosophy
supposes spirit to bear to matter.

It is only by forming theories, and then comparing them with facts,
that we can hope to discover the true system of nature.

I made a discovery yesterday which proves how necessary it is
to repeat experiments. The gaseous oxide of azote is perfectly
respirable when pure. It is never deleterious but when it
contains nitrous gas. I have found a mode of obtaining it pure,
and I breathed it to-day in the presence of Dr. Beddoes and some
others--sixteen quarts of it for near seven minutes. It appears
to support life longer than even oxygen gas, and absolutely
intoxicated me. Pure oxygen gas produced no alteration in my pulse
nor any other material effect, whereas this gas raised my pulse
upwards of twenty strokes, made me dance about the laboratory as a
madman, and has kept my spirits in a glow ever since.

* * * * *

Yours, with affection and respect,
HUMPHRY DAVY.

Dr. Paris says Coleridge gave him this account of of the caution of Davy at this time:

Dr. Beddoes thought nitrous oxide gas would cure paralysis. A
patient was to be treated by Davy. He first took the temperature
by means of a small thermometer placed under the tongue. The
patient immediately declared that he felt better. The opportunity
was too tempting to be lost. Davy cast an intelligent glance at
Mr. Coleridge, and desired the patient to renew his visit on
the following day, when the same ceremony was again performed,
and repeated every succeeding day for a fortnight, the patient
gradually improving during that period, when he was dismissed as
cured, no other application having been used than that of the
thermometer.

Southey thus wrote his opinion and that of Coleridge regarding Davy at this time: ‘He is a marvellous young man, whose talents I can only wonder at.’

Later he wrote:

My residence at Westbury was one of the happiest portions of
my life.... I was in habits of the most frequent and intimate
intercourse with Davy, then in the flower and freshness of his
youth. We were within an easy walk of each other over some of the
most beautiful ground in that beautiful part of England. When I
went to the Pneumatic Institution he had to tell me of some new
experiment or discovery and of the views which it opened for him,
and when he came to Westbury there was a fresh portion of Madoc for
his hearing.

On July 3, 1800, Davy wrote from Bristol to Gilbert:

We have been repeating the galvanic experiments with success.
Nicholson, by means of a hundred pieces of silver and zinc, has
procured a visible spark. Cruickshank has revived oxidated metals
in solution by means of the nascent hydrogen produced from the
decomposition of water by the shock, and both he and Carlisle have
absolutely resolved water into oxygen and hydrogen by means of
it, making use of silver and platina wires. An immense field of
investigation seems opened by this discovery; may it be pursued so
as to acquaint us with some of the laws of life!

You have undoubtedly heard of Herschel’s discovery concerning the
production of heat by invisible rays emitted from the sun?

Coleridge is gone to reside in Cumberland.

* * * * *

Yours, with sincere affection,
HUMPHRY DAVY.

On October 20, 1800, again he wrote to Gilbert:

In pursuing experiments on galvanism during the last two months I
have met with unexpected and unhoped-for success. Some of the new
facts on this subject promise to afford instruments capable of
destroying the mysterious veil which nature has thrown over the
operation and properties of ethereal fluids.

Galvanism I have found, by numerous experiments, to be a process
purely chemical.

I remain, with sincere respect and affection, yours,

HUMPHRY DAVY.

During this year he published a volume entitled ‘Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration.’

In the spring of 1800 Mr. Underwood, a geologist and artist, had become a proprietor of the Royal Institution. He had several conversations with Count Rumford on the subject of Davy’s superior talents and the advantages that would accrue to the Institution from engaging him as a lecturer. ‘The Count called on me,’ Underwood says, ‘on January 5, 1801, having received from the managers of the Institution full powers to negotiate upon this subject. On this occasion, however, I thought it advisable to introduce the Count to Mr. James Thompson, as being the more eligible person to treat in behalf of Davy, not only on account of his greater intimacy with him, but because, not being a proprietor, he was unconnected with the interests of the Institution.’ Mr. Thompson wrote to Davy. With his characteristic energy Davy answered in person, and had several conferences with Count Rumford. The following letter from Count Rumford to Davy, written from the Royal Institution, is dated February 16, 1801:

DEAR SIR,--In consequence of the conversations I have had with you,
respecting your engaging in the service of the Royal Institution of
Great Britain, I this day laid the matter before the managers of
the Institution at their meeting,[32] and I have the pleasure to
acquaint you that the proposal I made to them was approved, and the
following resolution unanimously taken by them: ‘Resolved,--That
Mr. Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution
in the capacity of Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, Director of the
Chemical Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of the Journals of the
Institution, and that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house
and be furnished with coals and candles, and that he be paid a
salary of 100_l._ per annum.’

On this occasion I did not neglect to give an account to the
managers of the whole of what passed between us respecting the
situation it was intended you should fill in the Institution
on your engaging in its service, and the prospects that could
with propriety be held out to you of future advantages, and the
managers agreed with me in thinking that, as you had expressed
your willingness to devote yourself entirely and permanently to
the Institution, it would be right and proper to hold out to you
the prospect of becoming, in the course of two or three years,
Professor of Chemistry in the Institution, with a salary of 300_l._
per annum, provided that within that period you shall have given
proofs of your fitness to hold that distinguished situation.

Although you must ever consider the duties of the offices you may
hold under the Institution as the primary objects of your care and
attention, yet the managers are so far from being desirous that you
should relinquish the private philosophical investigations in which
you have hitherto been engaged, and by which you have so honourably
distinguished yourself and attracted their attention, that it will
afford them the sincerest pleasure to encourage and assist you in
these laudable pursuits, and give you every facility which the
philosophical apparatus at the Institution can afford to make new
and interesting experiments.

You will naturally consider the Journals of the Institution as
the most proper vehicle for communicating to the public from
time to time short accounts of the progress you may make in your
investigations; this will, however, by no means be considered as
precluding you in any degree from presenting to the Royal Society
of London, or any other learned body, philosophical papers or
memoirs on such scientific subjects as may engage your attention,
or from publishing in any other manner the results of your
researches.

As you are fully informed with respect to the nature and objects
of the Royal Institution and are acquainted with the respectable
character of those distinguished persons with whom I have the
honour to act in the management of its concerns, you cannot, I
think, entertain the smallest doubt of their constant protection
and of their readiness on all occasions to do full justice to the
zeal and abilities you may display in the situation in which they
have placed you.

It is with much esteem and a sincere desire that the talents which
at so early a period of life you discovered may be cultivated with
care, and always employed with success, that I am, dear Sir, your
most obedient Servant,

RUMFORD.

On March 8 Davy wrote to Davies Gilbert:

I cannot think of quitting the Pneumatic Institution without giving
you information of it in a letter; indeed, I believe I should have
done this some time ago had not the hurry of business and the fever
of emotion produced by the prospect of novel changes in futurity
destroyed to a certain extent my powers of consistent action.

You, my dear sir, have behaved to me with great kindness, and
the little ability I possess you have very much contributed to
develope; I should therefore accuse myself of ingratitude were I
to neglect to ask your approbation of the measures I have adopted
with regard to the change of my situation and the enlargement of my
views in life.

In consequence of an invitation from Count Rumford, given to me
with some proposals relative to the Royal Institution, I visited
London in the middle of February, where, after several conferences
with that gentleman, I was invited by the managers of the Royal
Institution to become the director of their laboratory and their
assistant professor of chemistry. At the same time I was assured
that, within the space of two or three seasons, I should be made
sole professor of chemistry, still continuing director of the
laboratory.

The immediate emolument offered was sufficient for my wants, and
the sole and uncontrolled use of the apparatus in the Institution
for private experiments was to be granted me.

The behaviour of Count Rumford, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Cavendish,
and the other principal managers was liberal and polite, and they
promised me any apparatus that I might need for new experiments.

The time required to be devoted to the services of the Institution
was but short, being limited chiefly to the winter and spring.
The emoluments to be attached to the office of sole professor of
chemistry are great, and, above all, the situation is permanent and
held very honourable.

These motives, joined to the approbation of Dr. Beddoes, who,
with great liberality, has absolved me from my engagements at the
Pneumatic Institution, and the strong wishes of most of my friends
in London and Bristol determined my conduct.

Thus I am quietly to be transferred to London, whilst my sphere
of action is considerably enlarged, and as much power as I could
reasonably expect, or even wish for at my time of life, secured to
me without the obligation of labouring at a profession.

The Royal Institution will, I hope, be of some utility to society.
It has undoubtedly the capability of becoming a great instrument
of moral and intellectual improvement. Its funds are very great.
It has attached to it the feelings of a great number of people
of fashion and property, and consequently may be the means of
employing to useful purposes money which would otherwise be
squandered in luxury and in the production of unnecessary labour.

Count Rumford professes that it will be kept distinct from party
politics. I sincerely wish that such may be the case, though I
fear it. As for myself, I shall become attached to it, full of
hope, with the resolution of employing all my feeble powers towards
promoting its true interests.

* * * * *

I have been pursuing galvanism with labour and some success; I
have been able to produce galvanic power from single plates, by
effecting on them different oxidating and deoxidating processes.

After the 11th I shall be in town--my direction, Royal Institution.

I am, my dear Friend, with respect and affection, yours,

HUMPHRY DAVY.

At the meeting of the managers of the Royal Institution on February 16 (present, Sir J. Banks, Earl Morton, Count Rumford, and Mr. R. Clark, Chamberlain of the City of London), it was resolved ‘that Mr. Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution in the capacities of Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, Director of the Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of the Journals of the Institution; that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house, and be furnished with coals and candles; and that he be paid a salary of one hundred guineas per annum.’

On March 16 Count Rumford, after reporting that a room had been prepared and furnished, stated that Mr. Davy had arrived at the Institution on Wednesday, March 11, and taken possession of his situation.

Davy gave three courses of lectures in the spring of 1801.

His first course consisted of five lectures on the ‘New Branch of Philosophy’--the galvanic phenomena. His first lecture was on Tuesday evening, April 25. He began with the history of galvanism, detailed the successive discoveries, and described the different methods of accumulating galvanic influence. Polished plates of different metals and the effect of their lying together in contact with water and air were exhibited. ‘Air is absolutely necessary to the oxydating process.’ He observed that ‘it was difficult to prove that hydrogen was given out in the decomposition of water in this way, and that it seemed rather probable that alkali was formed.’ He showed the effects of galvanism on the legs of frogs, and exhibited some interesting experiments on the galvanic effects on the solution of metals in acids. As a recent discovery of his own he showed that with one kind of metal only, more powerful effects may be produced than with two, as heretofore employed; but in this case there must be more than one liquid interposed between the plates. He stated that copper, for example, and discs of cloth or pasteboard, moistened with diluted nitrous acid and solutions of muriat of soda and sulphuret of potash, and arranged in the order named (viz. copper, nitrous acid, muriat of soda, sulphuret of potash, &c.), give much more sensible shocks than the pile as at first constructed. The reporter added: ‘Sir Joseph Banks, Count Rumford, and other distinguished philosophers were present. The audience was highly gratified, and testified their satisfaction by general applause. Mr. Davy, who appears to be very young, acquitted himself admirably well; from the sparkling intelligence of his eye, his animated manner, and the _tout ensemble_ we have no doubt of his attaining a distinguished eminence.’

The second lecture was given on the 28th, and the others were to be delivered on the Tuesday and Saturday evenings till completed. He gave another short course on Pneumatic Chemistry. ‘The lectures were extremely ingenious and excited considerable attention.’ The concluding lecture was on June 20, on Respiration, and after the lecture an opportunity was given to such as wished it to breathe some of the nitrous oxide. The reporter said, ‘Mr. Grosvenor Bedford, Mr. Stodart, and Mr. Underwood breathed the gas, and the effects it produced, and especially on the last, were truly wonderful. Mr. Underwood experienced so much pleasure from breathing it that he lost all sense of everything else, and the breathing bag could only be taken from him at last by force.’ ‘The irresistible tendency to muscular action produced by this gas was such as cannot be described. It must be witnessed to be conceived.’

‘Professor Pictet, of Geneva, who is now on a visit in this country, Count Rumford, and other philosophers of eminence were present, and seemed not a little gratified with the exhibition of the gas.’[33]

‘Another galvanic course was also given by Mr. Davy, which, being delivered in the fore part of the day, was attended not only by men of science, but by numbers of people of rank and fashion, a proof that the Institution bids fair to promote a taste for philosophical pursuits among those whose wealth has but too often fostered the idea that such subjects were beneath the notice of independence.’

At a meeting of managers, held on June 1, it was resolved ‘that Mr. Humphry Davy, Director of the Chemical Laboratory and Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, since he has been employed at the Institution, has given satisfactory proofs of his talents as a lecturer, and also it was resolved that he be appointed and in future denominated Lecturer on Chemistry at the Royal Institution, instead of continuing to occupy the place of Assistant Lecturer, which he has hitherto filled.’

On June 18 his first paper was read at the Royal Society. It was an account of some galvanic combinations formed by an arrangement of single metallic plates and fluids analogous to the galvanic apparatus of M. Volta.

On June 29 a permanent committee for the general purposes of chemical investigation and analysis was appointed at the Royal Institution, and the Minutes say that Mr. Davy was instructed to prepare himself to give in the month of December next a course of lectures on the Philosophical and Chemical Principles of the Art of Dyeing, or on the Arts of Staining or Printing with Colours, Woollen, Linen, and Cotton Goods. ‘That Mr. Davy have permission to absent himself during the months of July, August, and September for the purpose of making himself more particularly acquainted with the practical part of the business of tanning.’

Davy first went to Bristol, and thence he wrote to his friend Mr. Underwood to join him for a tour in Cornwall.

MY DEAR UNDERWOOD,--That part of Almighty God which resides in
the rocks and woods, in the blue and tranquil sea, in the clouds
and sunbeams of the sky, is calling upon thee with a loud voice;
religiously obey its commands, and come and worship with me on the
ancient altars of Cornwall.

I shall leave Bristol on Thursday next, possibly before; so that
by this day week I shall probably be at Penzance. Ten days or a
fortnight after I shall expect to see you, and to rejoice with you.
We will admire together the wonders of God--rocks and the sea, dead
hills and living hills covered with verdure. Amen.

Write to me immediately, and say when you will come. Direct, H.
Davy, Penzance. Farewell, being of energy. Yours with unfeigned
affection,

H. DAVY.

On November 14 he wrote to Davies Gilbert from the Royal Institution:

I didn’t arrive in London until the 20th of September. On my
arrival I found that Count Rumford had altered his plans of
absence, and had left London on that very day for the Continent,
purposing to return in about two months. He is now at Paris, and in
about a fortnight we expect him here.

* * * * *

I yesterday ascertained rather an important fact; namely, that
a galvanic battery may be constructed _without any metallic
substance_. By means of ten pieces of well-burnt charcoal, nitrous
acid, and water, arranged alternately in wine-glasses, I produced
all the effects usually obtained from zinc, silver, and water.

The Bakerian lecture[34] by Dr. Young, our Lecturer on Natural
Philosophy, is now reading before the Royal Society. He attempts
to revive the doctrine of Huygens and Euler, that light depends
upon undulations of an ethereal medium. His proofs (_i.e._ his
presumptive proofs) are drawn from some strong and curious
analogies he has discovered between light and sound.

* * * * *

You should fix your permanent residence in London, where alone you
can do what you ought--instruct and delight numbers of improved
men. I am, my Friend, yours with unfeigned esteem and respect,

HUMPHRY DAVY.

On January 5, 1802, a syllabus of Davy’s course of lectures on Chemistry was printed at the press of the Royal Institution. He wrote for it the following advertisement:

It is generally admitted that the best method of teaching the
sciences is to begin with simple facts, and gradually to proceed
from them to the more complicated phenomena.

In the following pages, which contain the outlines of a course of
lectures on Chemistry, an attempt has been made to employ such a
method. Hence the abstruse doctrines concerning the imponderable
fluids have been separated from the history of simple chemical
action, and the applications of the science from the science
itself. The classification of substances adopted is founded
rather upon facts than analogies, and in consequence certain
bodies have been placed among the simple principles which, from
their resemblance to other bodies of known composition, have
been generally arranged in the class of compounds. This is an
imperfection, but on the principles assumed it could not easily be
avoided. And it will be fortunate for the author if a discerning
public should not discover many more important imperfections.

Part I. ‘The Chemistry of Ponderable Substances.’

Part II. ‘The Chemistry of Imponderable Substances.’ Div. 1,
of Heat or Caloric; Div. 2, of Light; Div. 3, of the Electric
Influence; Div. 4, of Galvanism.