Humphry Davy, Poet and Philosopher

by T. E. Thorpe

This letter is only one of many received by Davy from practical men, all telling the same story of wonder and astonishment “that so simple a looking instrument should defy an enemy heretofore unconquerable”; and all expressing the deepest gratitude to him as its inventor, often in language which gains in force, and even in eloquence, from its very homeliness and simple pathos.

The following address from the Whitehaven colliers was among the papers lent to me by Dr. Rolleston:—

“September 18, 1816.

“We, the undersigned, miners at the Whitehaven Collieries, belonging to the Earl of Lonsdale, return our sincere thanks to Sir Humphry Davy, for his invaluable discovery of the safe lamps, which are to us life preservers; and being the only return in our power to make, we most humbly offer this, our tribute of gratitude.”

The names of eighty-two miners are appended—the majority of them—viz. forty-seven—with their mark (+) affixed.

What the learned world thought may be judged from the following extracts from an article in the Edinburgh Review—a periodical not always characterised by a just appreciation of the work of the Royal Institution professors, for the literature of science contains few things more disingenuous or more spiteful than the attack of “the young gentleman from Edinburgh”—afterwards known as Lord Brougham—on Thomas Young when he first made known the undulatory theory of light. In the Review for February, 1816, Mr. Playfair begins his article on Davy’s discovery by pointing out that—

“The safe lamp is a present from philosophy to the arts, and to the class of men furthest removed from the influence of science. The discovery is in no degree the effect of accident; and chance, which comes in for so large a share in the credit of human inventions, has no claims on one which is altogether the result of patient and enlightened research....

“This is exactly such a case as we should choose to place before Bacon, were he to revisit the earth, in order to give him, in a small compass, an idea of the advancement which philosophy has made, since the time when he had pointed out to her the route which she ought to pursue. The great use of an immediate and constant appeal to experiment cannot be better evinced than in this example. The result is as wonderful as it is important. An invisible and impalpable barrier made effectual against a force the most violent and irresistible in its operations; and a power, that in its tremendous effects seemed to emulate the lightning and the earthquake, confined within a narrow space, and shut up in a net of the most slender texture,—are facts which must excite a degree of wonder and astonishment from which neither ignorance nor wisdom can defend the beholder. When to this we add the beneficial consequences and the saving of the lives of men and consider that the effects are to remain as long as coal continues to be dug from the bowels of the earth, it may fairly be said that there is hardly in the whole compass of art or science a single invention of which one would rather wish to be the author.”

Davy was urged by several of his friends to protect his invention by a patent. Among them was Mr. Buddle, who pointed out to him that he might have received his five or ten thousand a year from it.

“My good friend,” was his answer, “I never thought of such a thing: my sole object was to serve the cause of humanity; and if I have succeeded, I am amply rewarded in the gratifying reflection of having done so.... More wealth could not increase either my fame or my happiness. It might undoubtedly enable me to put four horses to my carriage; but what would it avail me to have it said that Sir Humphry drives his carriage and four?”

The gratitude of some of the leading colliery proprietors for an invention so unselfishly placed at their disposal found expression in a letter from the chairman of a general meeting of the coal-owners held at Newcastle on March 18th, 1816, conveying the terms of a vote of thanks. A few months afterwards it was determined that their appreciation should take a more substantial form, and a general meeting of the coal-owners was held at Wallsend Colliery on August 31st, 1816, at which it was resolved to make Davy a present of plate.

A note of opposition was at once sounded, and it came from one of the proprietors of the Felling Colliery. Mr. W. Brandling urged that it was not proved that Sir Humphry Davy was the first and true inventor of the safety lamp, or even the discoverer of the principle on which it was based.

“The conviction,” he said, “upon my mind is, that Mr. George Stephenson, of Killingworth Colliery, is the person who first discovered and applied the principle upon which safe lamps may be constructed; for whether the hydrogen gas is admitted through capillary tubes, or through the apertures of wire-gauze, which may be considered as merely the orifices of capillary tubes, does not, as I conceive, in the least affect the principle.”