Humphry Davy, the eldest son of “Carver” Robert Davy and his wife Grace Millett, was born on the 17th December, 1778.[A] His biographers are not wholly agreed as to the exact place of his birth. In the “Lives of Philosophers of the Time of George III.” Lord Brougham states that the great chemist was born at Varfell, a homestead or “town-place” in the parish of Ludgvan, in the Mount’s Bay, where, as the registers and tombstones of Ludgvan Church attest, the family had been settled for more than two hundred years.
[A] In some biographical notices—e.g. in the Gentleman’s Magazine, xcix. pt. ii. 9—the year is given as 1779.
Mr. Tregellas, in his “Cornish Worthies” (vol. i., p. 247), also leaves the place uncertain, hesitating, apparently, to decide between Varfell and Penzance.
According to Dr. John Davy, his brother Humphry was born in Market Jew Street, Penzance, in a house now pulled down, but which was not far from the statue of him that stands in front of the Market House of this town. Dr. Davy further states that Humphry’s parents removed to Varfell some years after his birth, when he himself was taken charge of by a Mr. Tonkin.
The Davys originally belonged to Norfolk. The first member of the family that settled in Cornwall was believed to have acted as steward to the Duke of Bolton, who in the time of Elizabeth had a considerable property in the Mount’s Bay. They were, as a class, respectable yeomen in fairly comfortable circumstances, who for generations back had received a lettered education. They took to themselves wives from the Eusticks, Adamses, Milletts, and other old Cornish families, and, if we may credit the testimony of the tombstones, had many virtues, were not overgiven to smuggling or wrecking, and, for the most part, died in their own beds.
The grandfather of Humphry, Edmund Davy, was a builder of repute in the west of Cornwall, who married well and left his eldest son Robert, the father of the chemist, in possession of the small copyhold property of Varfell, to which reference has already been made. Robert, although a person of some capacity, seems to have been shiftless, thriftless, and lax in habits. In his youth he had been taught wood-carving, and specimens of his skill are still to be seen in and about Penzance. But he practised his art in an irregular fashion, his energies being mainly spent in field sports, in unsuccessful experiments in farming, and in hazardous, and for the most part fruitless, ventures in mining. At his death, which occurred when he was forty-eight, his affairs were found to be sadly embarrassed; his widow and five children were left in very straitened circumstances, and Varfell had to be given up.
Fortunately for the children, the mother possessed the qualities which the father lacked. Casting about for the means of bringing up and educating her family, she opened a milliner’s shop in the town, in partnership with a French lady who had fled to England during the Revolution.
By prudence, good management, and the forbearance of creditors, she not only succeeded in rearing and educating her children, but gradually liquidated the whole of her husband’s debts. Some years later, by an unexpected stroke of fortune, she was able to relinquish her business. She lived to a good old age, cheerful and serene, happy in the respect and affection of her children and in the esteem and regard of her townspeople. Such a woman could not fail to exercise a strong and lasting influence for good on her children. That it powerfully affected the character of her son Humphry, he would have been the first to admit. Nothing in him was more remarkable or more beautiful than his strong and abiding love for his mother. No matter how immersed he was in his own affairs, he could always find time amidst the whirl and excitement of his London life, amidst the worry and anxiety of official cares—or, when abroad, among the peaks of the Noric Alps or the ruins of Italian cities—to think of his far-away Cornish home and of her round whom it was centred. To the last he opened out his heart to her as he did to none other; she shared in all his aspirations, and lived with him through his triumphs; and by her death, just a year before his own, she was happily spared the knowledge of his physical decay and approaching end.
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Davy was about sixteen years of age when his father died. At that time he was a bright, curly-haired, hazel-eyed lad, somewhat narrow-chested and undergrown, awkward in manner and gait, but keenly fond of out-door sport, and more distinguished for a love of mischief than of learning.