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 100l. 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 300l. 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.’