Sir Humphry Davy
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Sir Humphry Davy Bt PRS MRIA FGS |
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| Born |
17 December 1778 Penzance, Cornwall, England |
| Died | 29 May 1829 (aged 50) Geneva, Switzerland |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Chemistry |
| Institutions | Royal Society, Royal Institution |
| Known for | Electrolysis, aluminium, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, barium, boron, Davy lamp |
| Influences | Benjamin Thompson |
| Influenced | Michael Faraday, William Thomson |
| Notable awards |
Copley Medal (1805) Rumford Medal (1816) Royal Medal (1827) |
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet PRS MRIA FGS (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a Cornish chemist and inventor, who is best remembered today for isolating a series of substances for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1808 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. He also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry." He was a Baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), and Fellow of the Geological Society (FGS). He also invented the Davy Lamp and a very early form of incandescent light bulb.
Davy was born in Penzance, Cornwall in England on 17 December 1778. His family moved to Varfell, near Ludgvan, when he was nine, and in term-time Davy boarded with John Tonkin, his mother's godfather. After the Penzance school he attended Truro Grammar School in 1793 to finish his education under the Rev Dr Cardew, who, in a letter to Davies Gilbert, said dryly: "I could not discern the faculties by which he was afterwards so much distinguished." Davy said: "I consider it fortunate I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study... What I am I made myself."
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