Sir Humphry Davy - 1778 to 1829

Probably Penzance's most famous son is Sir Humphry Davy - the inventor of the Miner's Safety Lamp. He was born on the 17th of December 1778 quite near to where his statue stands today at the head of Market Jew Street. Davy was a brilliant chemist and physicsist undertaking many experiments with gases. In 1799, aged only 21, he learned of the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) which brought him some early recognition. In 1801, at the age of 23 he was nominated as a professor at the Royal Institution. He is known as the Father of Electrolysis discovering metal salts following the pioneering work of Alessandro Volta the previous year. In 1807 Davy successfully separated elemental potassium and sodium using electrolysis with the salts of magnesium, calcium and barium being produced just one year later.

In 1812 he was awarded a knighthood by King George III and also married. In autumn 1813, the couple along with one of his more promising students, a certain Michael Faraday, travelled to France at the behest of Napoleon Bonaparte to receive a medal for his work on electrolysis. The group toured the continent meeting other great scientists of the day as they travelled. Davy used formative work from Curtois to help Gay-Lussac discover Iodine. Later they travelled to Italy and met with Alessandro Volta.

On his return to England, Davy continued his studies with acids and bases and theorised that the acids were actually substances containing replaceable hydrogen refuting earlier work done by Lavoisier. Davy also produced the Miner's Safety Lamp. In 1818 he was made a baronet whilst in 1820 he became President of the Royal Society, a post he held for the next seven years. He died at Geneva in Switzerland on 29th May 1829 aged only 50.

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