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Portrait of Humphry Davy

Science · Chemistry

Humphry Davy

1778–1829 · English (Cornish)

Electrochemistry

Sir Humphry Davy, a woodcarver's son from Penzance, rose to become the most celebrated scientific lecturer in London and President of the Royal Society. After experimenting with nitrous oxide (laughing gas) in Bristol, he used the electric battery at the Royal Institution to isolate potassium, sodium and the alkaline earth metals, showed chlorine to be an element, and invented the miners' safety lamp. He also gave Michael Faraday his start in science.

How to spot them

  • ▸Laughing gas (nitrous oxide) experiments at Thomas Beddoes's Pneumatic Institution in Bristol
  • ▸Isolated potassium and sodium (1807) by electrolysis, then calcium, barium, strontium and magnesium (1808)
  • ▸The Davy safety lamp for coal miners (1815)
  • ▸Royal Institution lecturer; mentor of Michael Faraday; born in Penzance

Key discoveries & works

Researches, Chemical and Philosophical; chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide (1800)

Account of breathing laughing gas, noting its possible use against pain in surgery

Isolation of potassium and sodium by electrolysis (1807)

Passed current from a large voltaic pile through molten potash and soda

Isolation of calcium, barium, strontium and magnesium (1808)

The alkaline earth metals, also by electrolysis

Proof that 'oxymuriatic acid' is an element, named chlorine (1810)

Named from the Greek for pale green

Miners' safety lamp with a wire-gauze flame screen (1815)

Prevented flames igniting firedamp (methane); a rival design was George Stephenson's Geordie lamp

Elements of Agricultural Chemistry (1813)

Book based on his lectures to the Board of Agriculture

Key ideas

  • Chemical affinity is electrical in nature: electrolysis can break compounds thought to be elements
  • Showed acids need not contain oxygen, against Lavoisier (chlorine and hydrochloric acid)

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born in Penzance, Cornwall; apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary
  • •Worked at Thomas Beddoes's Pneumatic Institution in Clifton, Bristol, where friends included Coleridge and Southey; he also wrote poetry
  • •Joined the Royal Institution in 1801, where his lectures drew fashionable crowds
  • •Knighted in 1812 and made a baronet in 1818; President of the Royal Society 1820–1827
  • •Took Michael Faraday as his assistant in 1813 and on a tour of Europe
  • •Married the wealthy widow Jane Apreece in 1812
  • •Died in Geneva in 1829
  • •The subject of E. C. Bentley's first clerihew, about his dislike of gravy

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources