The lady was the widow of Shuckburgh Ashby Apreece, the eldest son of Sir Thomas Apreece; she was the daughter and heiress of Charles Kerr of Kelso, who had been secretary to Lord Rodney, and had made a fortune in the West Indies. She was also a “far-away cousin” of Sir Walter Scott, and on the occasion of his tour in the Hebrides with his family, “his dear friend and distant relation,” as he calls her, accompanied them. She had been, he says, “a lioness of the first magnitude in Edinburgh” during the preceding winter; and in one of his letters to Byron in 1812, inviting him to Abbotsford, he mentions as one of the visitors that would make his house attractive “the fair or shall I say the sage Apreece that was, Lady Davy that is, who is soon to show us how much science she leads captive in Sir Humphry; so your lordship sees, as the citizen’s wife says in the farce, ‘Threadneedle Street has some charms,’ since they procure us such celebrated visitants.” How Scott regarded her is further indicated in the letters which he addressed to her on the occasion of his son’s marriage, and during the financial crash which overwhelmed him.
When the marriage was arranged Davy thus wrote to his mother:—
“My dear Mother,—You possibly may have heard reports of my intended marriage. Till within the last few days it was mere report. It is I trust now a settled arrangement. I am the happiest of men, in the hope of a union with a woman equally distinguished for virtues, talents and accomplishments....
“You, I am sure, will sympathise in my happiness. I believe I should never have married, but for this charming woman, whose views and whose tastes coincide with my own, and who is eminently qualified to promote my best efforts and objects in life....
“I am your affectionate son,
“H. Davy.”
In the following letter to Dr. John Davy, who was then in Edinburgh as a student of medicine, we have also the announcement of another event:—
“Friday, April 10th, 1812.
“My dear Brother,—You will have excused me for not writing to you on subjects of science. I have been absorbed by arrangements on which the happiness of my future life depends. Before you receive this these arrangements will, I trust, be settled; and, in a few weeks, I shall be able to return to my habits of study and of scientific research.
“I am going to be married to-morrow; and I have a fair prospect of happiness, with the most amiable and intellectual woman I have ever known.
“The Prince Regent, unsolicited by me, or by any of my intimate friends, was pleased to confer the honour of knighthood on me at the last levée. This distinction has not often been bestowed on scientific men; but I am proud of it, as the greatest of human geniuses bore it; and it is at least a proof that the court has not overlooked my humble efforts in the cause of science.
“I have discovered pure phosphorous acid (a solid body, very volatile); and a pure hydro-phosphorous acid, containing two proportions of water and four of phosphorous acid, and decomposing by heat into phosphoric acid and a new gas containing four proportions of hydrogen and one of phosphorus....
“Pray address to me Sir H. Davy, Beechwood Park, near Market St. Alban’s.
“Believe me, my dear John, I shall always take the warmest interest in your welfare and happiness, and will do everything to promote your views. I shall have some ideas on your studies soon to communicate.
“I am, my dear brother most affectionately yours
“H. Davy.”
He was knighted by the Prince Regent at a levée held at Carlton House on the 8th April, 1812, being the first person on whom that honour was conferred by the Regent. On the following day he delivered his farewell lecture as Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution. It was on the Metals, and a report of it is contained in Faraday’s manuscript notes before referred to. Faraday says:—
“Having thus given the general character of the metals, Sir H. Davy proceeded to make a few observations on the connection of science with the other parts of polished and social life. Here it would be improper for me to follow him. I should merely injure and destroy the beautiful, the sublime observations that fell from his lips. He spoke in the most energetic and luminous manner of the advancement of the arts and sciences, of the connection that had always existed between them and other parts of a nation’s economy. He noticed the peculiar congeries of great men in all departments of life that generally appeared together, noticed Anaximander, Anaximenes, Socrates, Newton, Bacon, Elizabeth, etc., but, by an unaccountable omission, forgot himself, though I venture to say no one else present did.
“During the whole of these observations his delivery was easy, his diction elegant, his tone good, and his sentiments sublime.”
Two days afterwards he was married, and Lady Davy and he passed most of the spring and summer in the North of England and in Scotland, on a round of visits, cultivating those patrician instincts and susceptibilities to the charms of rank that his new station served to accentuate.
Writing to Miss Margaret Ruxton, Maria Edgeworth says:—
“I suppose you have heard various jeux d’esprit on the marriage of Sir Humphry Davy and Mrs. Apreece? I scarcely think any of them worth copying.”