17 December: Sir Humphry Davy

Sir Humphry Davy, a pioneer in science, was born on this date in 1778. Read on to find out something about the man and his discoveries.

1. Humphry Davy was born on 17 December 1778 in Penzance in Cornwall.
2. While best known for his scientific discoveries, Davy was also a poet. He started writing poetry at school to entertain his friends and continued to write poetry throughout his life. He wrote more than 160 poems in his personal notebooks - most were never published, but eight of them were. He wrote poems about chemistry, his career, descriptive poems about St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, and, in his final years, metaphysics and death. The poet Coleridge said of him that if he "had not been the first chemist, he would have been the first poet of his age". William Wordsworth even asked Davy to proofread some of his work. A compendium of poetry, Consolations in Travel, written in the last months of his life, and published after he died.
3. He painted, too. Three of Davy's paintings from around 1796 were donated to the Penlee House museum in Penzance. They are of St Michael's Mount and Loch Lomond in Scotland.
4. All this and his scientific achievements might make you think he was an indoor, studious type, but he also loved being outdoors and had a passion for fly fishing. He even wrote a book about it, Salmonia, which has been called the "fly-fisherman's bible".
5. After Davy's father died, Davy was apprenticed to a surgeon in Penzance, and his interest in science flourished as he met the surgeon's scientist friends. They saw his potential and invited him to use their libraries and laboratories and taught him chemistry. At 19, he left Penzance for Bristol, to study science.
6. He discovered the elements chlorine and iodine as well as being the first to isolate Potassium, sodium, calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron, using Alessandro Volta's battery. Davy also studied what made these experiments work, thus inventing the new field of electrochemistry. He is also known for his work with nitrous oxide (laughing gas), producing the first incandescent light (by passing electric current through a thin strip of platinum, chosen because platinum has an extremely high melting point - not bright enough to be of any practical use, but he showed it could be done). He's most famous for the Davy lamp, invented after some miners in Newcastle wrote to him asking if he could help solve the dangerous problem of methane gas in mines. Until then, miners wore candles in their helmets so they could see to work; but naked flames and methane are not a good combination. Davy's lamp was a way to separate the light-giving flame from the gas.
7. Health and safety? What health and safety? Humphry Davy conducted some extremely dangerous experiments with gases which meant he was lucky to live long enough to invent the Davy lamp at all. Part of his experimentation with laughing gas involved breathing in nitric oxide, which formed nitric acid in his mouth, injuring him. On another occasion he breathed in carbon monoxide and had to be removed into the fresh air where he faintly declared, "I do not think I shall die." It did, however, take him several hours to recover. In 1812, he was working with nitrogen trichloride, which had been discovered by the French scientist Pierre Louis Dulong the previous year. Dulong's experiments had resulted in him losing an eye and two fingers. "It must be used with great caution. It is not safe to experiment upon a globule larger than a pin's head," Davy wrote. Davy almost lost his sight from working with the stuff. He made a full recovery but for a while needed an assistant to help with record keeping. The man he hired was Michael Faraday, who went on to become a famous scientist in his own right.
8. As a young man he had a long-standing romantic relationship with Mrs Anna Beddoes, the novelist Maria Edgeworth's sister. The two wrote poetry to each other. However, he didn't marry until 1812, the year he was knighted. His wife's name was Jane Apreece, a wealthy widow. However, the marriage was considered to be a rocky one, because Davy often went travelling without her. Nevertheless, after he died, Jane organised a memorial tablet for him in Westminster Abbey at a cost of £142.
9. He was a popular scientist in his day. He was hired as an assistant lecturer in chemistry at the Royal Institution. His lectures became a draw for fashionable London society. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1803 and was awarded its Copley Medal in 1805. Davy was made a baronet in 1818 and from 1820 - 1827 was president of the Royal Society. In 1813, he was presented with a medal by Napoleon, too, even though England and France were at war at the time.
10. He died in a hotel room in Geneva, Switzerland at the age of 50. He'd had a stroke, and was travelling in the hope that he'd recover. He'd expressed a wish to be buried in whichever country he was in when he died, and hence his grave is in Geneva. Not all his wishes were adhered to, however. He'd asked that he shouldn't be buried quickly, in case he was only in a coma, but Geneva's laws insisted there be no delay, and so he was buried within a week. At least they wouldn't have time to go against his wish that no post mortem should be done, for the same reason.

Countdown to Christmas!

A list of all the Christmas-related posts in this blog. For festive fact seekers!

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

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New!

Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

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