Category: Biographies
Humphry Davy, the eldest son of “Carver” Robert Davy and his wife Grace Millett, was born on the 17th December, 1778.[A] His biographers are not wholly agreed as to the exact place of his birth. In the “Lives of Philosophers of the Time of George III.” Lord Brougham states tha...
On October 2nd, 1798, Davy set out for Clifton with such books and apparatus as he possessed, and the MSS. of his essays on Heat and Light safely stowed away among his baggage....
11. CHAPTER XI.Davy was elected into the Royal Society in 1803. His certificate describes him as “a gentleman of very considerable scientific knowledge, and author of a paper in the Philosophi...
4. CHAPTER IV.The Royal Institution, as originally conceived, was an establishment for the benefit of the poor. It was founded at the close of the last century by Benjamin Thomson, a Royalist...
6. CHAPTER VI.However devoted Davy might be to scientific investigation, he was no less mindful of the sacred claims of the long vacation. In the summer of 1805 he went to the Lake Country, w...
7. CHAPTER VII.The rivalry between the French and English chemists continued, but it took a new departure. Gay Lussac and Thenard had stolen a march on Davy by their discovery of a chemical me...
5. CHAPTER V.The chemical laboratory of the Royal Institution, as the scene of Davy’s greatest discoveries--discoveries which mark epochs in the development of natural knowledge--will for ev...
10. CHAPTER X.Shortly after Davy’s return to England his sympathy was enlisted in a cause which enabled him to display all the attributes of his genius, and to achieve a triumph which, while...
9. CHAPTER IX.The year 1813 is memorable in the history of the Royal Institution, from the fact that Faraday’s long and honourable association with it dates from that time. The circumstances...
8. CHAPTER VIII.Davy was now (1810) thirty-two years of age, and near the summit of his scientific fame, and perhaps also, says his brother John, who was then in daily association with him, at...
1. CHAPTER I.Humphry Davy, the eldest son of “Carver” Robert Davy and his wife Grace Millett, was born on the 17th December, 1778.[A] His biographers are not wholly agreed as to the exact pl...
3. CHAPTER III.Perhaps at no time of his life was Davy more keenly sensible of the joy of living than at this period--“in the flower and freshness of his youth,” as Southey says. That he was e...