Background
Davy was not an especially good student, his interest in outdoor sports being too commanding; in fact, his love of fishing continued to the end of his life. His first interest in science was awakened (1797) by reading some writings of Lavoisier and of Nicholson. Davy's first experiments, made in the office of a physician whom he assisted, brought him to the attention of Davies Gilbert, later president of the Royal Society (18271831), through whose praises Davy was appointed superintendent (1798) of the Medical Pneumatic institution established at Bristol by Dr. Thomas Beddoes. In 1799 results of Davy's works were published by Beddoes in two papers, and although Davy subsequently abandoned many of the conclusions in them, they brought publicity to the Institution and to Davy. It was in this year that he discovered and reported the anaesthetic properties of laughing gas and suggested its use in dental practice. Nearly half a century was to pass until it was tried in America.
In 1801 Davy became assistant lecturer in chemistry under Count Rumford at the Royal Institution in London and later (1802) professor of chemistry. Here he conducted researches at the request of the Board of Agriculture for ten years, at the end of which time he published a work which became a standard reference for agricultural chemistry for fifty years. Although Davy produced the first arc lamp in 1801 and the first incandescent electric lamp in 1802, his chief interest during these years was in electrochemistry. In 1807 he prepared sodium and potassium by electrolysis of molten sodium and potassium chlorides (1807), and his contributions to electrochemistry at this time are a landmark in chemical progress. In 1808 a long illness necessitated rest, and on Apr. 9, 1812, Davy delivered his farewell lecture at the Royal Institution. The same month he was knighted and married. In October 1813 Davy set out on a Continental tour with his wife, also taking young Michael Faraday, his assistant at the Institution, with him. Although England and France were at war, the British scientist was hospitably received at Paris, at Genoa where he investigated the electric torpedo-fish, and at Florence where, using the great burning glass of the Accademia del Cimento, they burned the Duke of Tuscany's diamond in oxygen, concluding that diamond is composed essentially of pure carbon. During this period Davy also announced that oxymuriatic acid was a simple element and proposed the name "chlorine" for it, and prepared a number of substances including boron, hydrogen phosphide, and hydrogen telluride.
In 1815 he invented the miner's safety lamp, which bears his name and on which he refused to issue a patent. This humanitarian service won the appreciation of employers and employees, the Newcastle coal-owners presenting Davy (1817) with a silver dinner service as an expression of their appreciation. This he willed to his brother with the stipulation that if the legatee died without heirs the silver service was to be melted and the proceeds to go for a medal, the Davy Medal, awarded by the Royal Society for the "most important discovery in chemistry in Europe or Anglo-America." The sale produced £736.p736. In 1823 Davy developed for the Royal Society a method of preserving the copper sheathing of ships from corrosion by fixing zinc sheeting to it, but the Admiralty rejected it a impractical since marine growths fouled the sheeting. Three years later his physical condition became alarming, and most of his remaining years were spent on the Continent. His intense scientific work took its toll in middle life and, after an illness, he died in Geneva on May 29, 1829.
Davy had a facile pen and wrote poetry of great beauty. Coleridge has said, "If he had not been the first chemist he would have been the first poet of his age." Southey said that "he had all the elements of a poet; he only wanted the art." He was also a brilliant lecturer. Coleridge went to hear him "to increase his stock of metaphors." His audiences were enamored of his abilities at exposition and of public illustration. Among the many honors which came to him was that of the medal of the French Institute offered by Napoleon for the best experiment on galvanism (1802), Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1803), knighted (1812), made a baronet (1818) for his service to industry, and made president of the Royal Society (1820).