0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,

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a production of iHeartRadio.

0:11

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

0:14

tra c Ev Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

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This is part two of our accidental two

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parter on chemist Sir Humphrey

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Davy. In part one, we

0:23

talked about how he became medical

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superintendent at the Pneumatic

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Institute and did a bunch of experiments

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involving nitrous oxside and then

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wrote a five hundred and eighty page book

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about it. He was only nineteen when he

0:37

got that job. He did not have a lot of

0:40

formal education. When

0:42

I started envisioning this episode,

0:44

I sort of thought that was going to be the episode.

0:48

But he also had a whole career after

0:50

that point, and that is what we are talking

0:52

about today. So last time,

0:54

our discussion of Humphrey Davies's work was

0:56

mainly about gases and specifically

0:59

nitrous oxide, but that's not the only thing

1:01

that he was working on. He published

1:03

his first paper in the Royal Society's Philosophical

1:06

Transactions in eighteen oh one, and

1:09

that paper was on the voltaic pile,

1:11

an early electrical battery invented

1:13

by Alessandro volta in

1:16

a voltaic pile, Alternating discs

1:18

of two different medals, such as copper and zinc,

1:20

are stacked together, along with fabric

1:23

discs that are soaked in something like saltwater

1:25

or vinegar. Initially,

1:27

it was believed that the current in a voltaic pile

1:30

was caused by the voltage difference between the

1:32

two alternating medals. Davy's

1:35

paper argued correctly that

1:37

it was really the result of a chemical reaction.

1:40

In March of eighteen oh one, Davy

1:42

was offered a position at the Royal Institution,

1:45

which had been founded in seventeen ninety

1:48

nine to teach the general public about

1:50

science. He was assistant

1:53

lecturer in chemistry, director

1:55

of the laboratory, and assistant editor

1:57

of the institution's journals. Adition

2:00

to his salary, this position

2:02

came with a room call and

2:05

candles so charming.

2:08

We have discussed about how most

2:10

of Davey's education was self directed,

2:12

and this was not all that unusual

2:14

for someone of his social class, especially

2:17

in a field like chemistry, which was basically

2:19

brand new. This was also

2:22

the age of the so called gentleman's scientist,

2:24

although there were also women like Mary

2:26

Anning and Caroline Herschel. A

2:29

lot of scientists pursued their work independently,

2:32

often without any kind of backing from

2:34

a formal institution or a lot of

2:36

formal education, and the field

2:38

had not been professionalized. But

2:41

even in that context, Davy's

2:43

appointment to this position was pretty remarkable.

2:46

It wasn't just that he didn't have formal education

2:48

in chemistry. He didn't have much

2:50

formal education at all, and

2:52

he was only twenty two, already

2:55

well published when he was offered this position.

2:58

His work with nitrous oxide it didn't

3:00

entirely end when he left the Pneumatic

3:03

Institute. On June twentieth,

3:05

eighteen oh one, he gave a public lecture

3:08

at the Royal Institution. This

3:10

lecture was on respiration, and he

3:12

told the audience that anybody who wanted

3:14

to could experience this gas

3:17

afterward. In the words of

3:19

a nineteen thirty write up on Davy

3:21

in Science Progress in the twentieth

3:23

Century, quote, the spectators

3:26

were amused by the antics of the

3:28

experimenters, and one subject

3:30

at least enjoyed paradise. For mister

3:33

Underwood was so transported

3:35

and so reluctant to leave Heaven

3:38

for Earth that the breathing bag

3:40

had to be snatched forcibly from

3:42

him. As a side note,

3:45

the Pneumatic Institute didn't keep his focus

3:47

on gases as a curative forever.

3:50

In eighteen oh four it became the Preventive

3:52

Medical Institution for the Sick

3:55

and Drooping Poor, which, as

3:57

its name suggests, was a hospital for the

3:59

poor focused primarily on the

4:01

treatment of tuberculosis. Its

4:03

founder, Thomas Beddows, died four

4:05

years later. Some of Davies's

4:08

other lectures that the Royal Institution

4:10

were on tanning. He tried

4:12

to figure out how tanning worked

4:14

as at a chemical level, I'm talking about

4:17

the tanning of animal hides,

4:20

not going out for a suntan, so

4:22

he was figuring out how that worked and whether

4:24

there were improvements that could be made to

4:27

the process. He concluded that

4:29

workers at England's best tanneries

4:31

had already developed pretty good methods for

4:33

their work, so he didn't try to come in and

4:35

revolutionize the whole process.

4:38

But he did look for substitutes

4:41

for some of the more expensive and harder

4:43

to source materials that were used

4:46

in tanning. In particular,

4:48

he found a substitute for oak bark,

4:50

which was in short supply, but that substitute

4:53

was katachew, which was an

4:55

extract from acacia trees which grew

4:57

in India. So of course that

4:59

gets into a whole tangle of British

5:01

imperialism and colonialism. He

5:04

also worked in agriculture, including

5:06

testing the quality of the soil and developing

5:09

recommendations for different types of fertilizer.

5:12

This followed the same basic pattern as

5:14

his tannery work. He was figuring

5:16

out the chemical processes involved and

5:18

making recommendations for adjustments when

5:20

necessary, but generally he thought

5:23

what Britain's farmers were already doing was working

5:25

pretty well, and he did not try to totally

5:27

re envision things. He published

5:30

Elements of Agricultural Chemistry based

5:32

on this work in eighteen thirteen. Davy

5:35

also gave lots of public lectures

5:38

on chemistry more generally, and

5:40

soon he was really in high demand as

5:42

both a speaker and a dinner guest.

5:45

He was charismatic and used a lot of showmanship

5:48

in his lectures, and he tended to attract

5:50

a lot of women in the audience and around

5:52

town. There

5:55

are some sort of comedic illustrations

5:57

of him doing lecturing in which

5:59

like audiences overwhelmingly women.

6:02

There are also stories about him working

6:05

in his lab until the absolute last

6:07

second, and then putting a clean

6:09

shirt on on top of what he already

6:12

had on as he walked out the door

6:14

to go to some dinner engagement. Davy

6:17

became a fellow of the Royal Society

6:19

in eighteen oh four, and he was awarded

6:21

the Society's Copley Medal in eighteen

6:23

oh five. The Copley Medal is

6:25

an award for outstanding achievement. It

6:27

is one of the oldest, if not the oldest,

6:30

scientific awards in the world. In

6:32

eighteen oh seven, Davy was elected as one

6:34

of two secretaries of the Royal Society,

6:37

and he was also awarded the Napoleon

6:39

Prize from the Institute de France, although

6:42

England and France were at war and a naval

6:44

blockade meant that there was no way for him

6:47

to even be informed that he had won this

6:49

prize. That's going to come up again later

6:51

though. Also in eighteen oh

6:53

seven, Davey started working on isolating

6:56

and identifying different elements

6:58

using electrolysis. This

7:01

was connected to his earlier work with

7:03

the voltaic pile. He had

7:05

concluded that if a chemical reaction

7:07

could generate an electrical current,

7:09

then you could maybe basically do the opposite.

7:12

An electrical current could also be

7:14

used to initiate a chemical reaction,

7:17

so he used electricity to isolate

7:19

pure sodium from caustic soda

7:22

and potassium from caustic

7:24

potash. Apparently he

7:27

wanted the word potassium to start

7:29

with pt, like the word pterodactyl,

7:32

but a transcriber misspelled it in

7:35

the first manuscript on the subject as that was

7:37

being prepared, and this like incorrect

7:40

in Davy's mind. Spelling stuck,

7:42

Let's just go with this. Yeah.

7:45

Also, a lot of these elements are like

7:47

very reactive when they are isolated

7:49

on their own, so this probably involved

7:51

some very dramatic moments in the lab.

7:54

Davy isolated more elements

7:57

in eighteen oh eight, including boron

7:59

from boricap acid and calcium,

8:01

which that process involved electrolyzing

8:04

lime and mercuric oxide

8:06

together. By this point,

8:08

Humphrey was incredibly well respected

8:10

and he was influential as a scientist.

8:13

He was also trying to put his work into use

8:15

out in the world. At one

8:18

point, he visited Newgate Prison to

8:20

evaluate its ventilation system, and

8:22

while there he contracted typhus,

8:24

also known as jail fever. In

8:27

eighteen ten. Some of Davies's work focused

8:29

on acidity. We mentioned

8:32

back in Part one that Antoine Laurent

8:34

la Foisier had believed that

8:36

oxygen was present in all

8:39

acids, and he had coined the name for

8:41

oxygen based on that idea. At

8:44

the time, hydrochloric acid

8:47

was known as muriatic acid,

8:49

which was the term some people still use today.

8:52

Lavoisier had believed that removing

8:54

the hydrogen from muriatic

8:57

acid resulted in oxy

8:59

muratic acid, and that that contained

9:01

oxygen, But Davy concluded

9:04

that this did not contain oxygen, and

9:06

that in fact, it was not a compound at

9:09

all. Instead, he said this was its

9:11

own element, chlorine, which

9:13

he named for its green color. Davy

9:16

didn't actually discover chlorine,

9:19

that's usually attributed to Karl

9:21

Wilhelmschill in seventeen seventy

9:23

four, but Davy was the one who determined that it

9:25

was an element. Davy

9:27

was awarded an honorary doctorate from

9:30

Trinity College, Dublin in eighteen eleven.

9:33

On April eighth, eighteen twelve, he

9:35

was knighted, and three days after that

9:37

he married Jane, a priest who he had proposed

9:40

to about a month before. She

9:42

was a wealthy widow and a socialite

9:44

and an intellectual, sometimes

9:46

described as a bluestocking, and she

9:49

had hosted her own salon. Jane

9:51

had inherited money from her late husband

9:53

and from her father, who was a merchant whose

9:55

business had been primarily out of Antigua,

9:58

where he dealt in both goods and enslaved

10:00

people. Also, in eighteen

10:03

twelve, Davy published a book titled

10:05

Elements of Chemical Philosophy, which

10:07

was dedicated to his wife, and

10:10

that same year he was injured in a lab

10:12

accident while working with nitrogen

10:15

trichloride, which is highly explosive.

10:18

While he was recovering from this accident,

10:20

he needed an assistance, especially

10:22

to help with things like record keeping, so he

10:24

hired twenty one year old Michael Faraday.

10:28

Faraday continued working with Davy

10:30

for years. Sometimes his role was

10:32

more like a valet or a personal secretary,

10:35

which she seems to have found pretty degrading.

10:37

Sometimes he was more like a lab assistant or an

10:39

apprentice. Davey recovered

10:42

from his injuries in eighteen thirteen,

10:45

and that year he also left his position at

10:47

the Royal Institution. Thanks to

10:49

his marriage, he no longer needed the job.

10:52

But in spite of their common intellectual

10:54

ground, Humphrey and Jane don't

10:56

seem to have been very well matched. There

10:59

was just a lot of friction between the two of them,

11:01

and a lot of public bickering in the

11:03

later years of their marriage.

11:05

Sometimes they spent long stretches

11:07

of time apart, each of them pursuing

11:09

their own interests, but

11:11

they also did travel together at

11:13

some points, including taking a trip

11:15

to France in October of eighteen

11:18

thirteen to collect that medal

11:20

that Davy had been awarded back

11:22

in eighteen oh seven. It

11:25

is a weird trip. England and France

11:27

were still at war with each other. The

11:30

Davies apparently made this trip

11:32

along with Michael Faraday, with Napoleon's

11:35

permission, but

11:37

even with that permission they were still arrested

11:40

and detained after they got to France.

11:42

Once they were released, they went to Paris.

11:45

They met Napoleon's second wife, Marie

11:47

Luise. They did not meet Napoleon

11:49

himself. Davy

11:51

seems to have butted heads with a lot

11:53

of people on this trip, making no secret

11:56

about his antipathy for the French. This

11:58

was about politics and the ongoing wars

12:01

between England and France, and it was

12:03

also about science. We

12:05

have already talked about his criticisms of

12:07

some of the work of French chemist Antoine Laurent

12:10

Lavoisier. He also had

12:12

a huge rivalry with French chemist

12:14

and physicist Joseph Luis guille

12:16

Lussac, with the two of them arguing

12:18

over who should get credit for the identification

12:21

of iodine as an element, which was connected

12:23

to the work Davey carried out while in Paris. Bernard

12:27

Courtois had first described iodine

12:29

in eighteen eleven, and then in eighteen

12:31

thirteen, Gui le Sac and Davy

12:33

had written work identifying it as an element.

12:36

About a week apart. This

12:38

is a trip where I was like, hey, a friend, you

12:40

didn't have to go to

12:42

France and laker with everyone

12:45

that you were angry at and your

12:48

nation was at war with it. He

12:50

wanted that award. Some

12:53

of the descriptions of it just make him sound like a

12:55

big jerk to me. After

12:58

leaving France, the party would on to Italy.

13:01

Eventually, as we know, Napoleon

13:04

was forced to abdicate as Emperor

13:06

of the French and he was exiled to Elba.

13:09

The party decided they should go back to Britain

13:11

after they heard of Napoleon's return

13:13

from exile in eighteen fifteen.

13:16

After returning to Britain, Davy was

13:18

asked to work on the problem of coal mine

13:21

explosions, and we're going to talk about that after

13:23

we pause for a sponsor break. Humphrey

13:35

Davy was living at a time when demand

13:38

for coal was skyrocketing

13:40

in Britain and in other parts of the world

13:42

due to the Industrial Revolution.

13:45

In the mid eighteenth century, Britain had

13:48

been producing about five million

13:50

tons of coal per year. By

13:52

the mid nineteenth century, that number

13:55

had increased more than tenfold.

13:57

As railroads and factories burned

14:00

coal to drive steam engines. Miners

14:02

had to work faster and dig deeper, and

14:05

that made a job that was already difficult

14:07

and dirty, increasingly unsafe

14:10

in the face of mine collapses and

14:12

explosions of flammable gas,

14:15

which at the time were known as fire damp.

14:18

One of Britain's worst mine explosions

14:20

happened on May twenty fifth, eighteen twelve,

14:22

at the Felling Colliery. This was

14:24

an enormous explosion that was heard for miles

14:27

and it killed ninety two men and boys who

14:29

had been working in the mine. When

14:31

crews attempted to reopen the mine,

14:34

it took days for the flammable gases

14:36

inside to become diluted enough

14:38

for anyone to try to enter. The

14:41

Society for Preventing Accidents

14:43

in Mines was established a following year,

14:46

and they contacted Humphrey Davy for

14:48

help. Davy's first

14:50

step was to collect samples of gas

14:52

from the mine and analyze them, and

14:55

he concluded that firedamp was primarily

14:58

methane. This was not new

15:00

discovery. Other researchers had already

15:02

said this is methane, but he confirmed

15:04

that earlier work, and then he started

15:07

experimenting with it, collecting it and

15:09

testing it in things like jars and tubes

15:12

and other vessels to figure

15:14

out exactly in which conditions

15:16

it would explode. He eventually

15:19

concluded that firedamp only exploded

15:21

when exposed to very high temperatures,

15:24

which is not really surprising,

15:26

but the methods to light the mines

15:28

involved an open flame, so this

15:31

meant that the risk of explosion was just

15:33

constant. So to

15:35

solve this problem, he set out to

15:37

create a safer lamp, and Davy's

15:40

first design enclosed the flame in a glass

15:42

chimney with tubes to allow

15:44

air into the lantern and exhaust out

15:47

of it. This limited the amount

15:49

of methane that could come into contact with the

15:51

flame, and it also gave the gases time

15:53

to cool as they moved into and out

15:55

of the tubes. It wasn't

15:58

possible for large amounts of methane to

16:00

move through these tubes, so exposure

16:02

to fire damp could cause the flame to burn

16:04

a bit brighter, but not explode,

16:07

and the outside of the lamp did not get hot

16:10

enough to cause anything to ignite. Soon,

16:13

Davy modified this design, replacing

16:15

the glass chimney with a mesh screen

16:18

after determining exactly how

16:21

fine the mesh had to be to prevent

16:23

explosions. While it was possible

16:26

for methane to make its way through

16:28

this screen and burn inside

16:30

of the lamp, that flame could not pass

16:33

outside of the screen and cause an explosion.

16:36

This lamp could also help miners detect

16:39

whether there were build ups of dangerous

16:41

gases in the area based on the height

16:44

and the color of the flame. Davy

16:46

started publishing papers on this research

16:48

within a couple of weeks of starting work in

16:51

eighteen fifteen, and by eighteen

16:53

sixteen, lamps he had made were being successfully

16:56

tested in mines. When a

16:58

friend said that he should patent his invent, he

17:00

said, quote, I never thought of such a thing.

17:03

My sole object was to serve the cause

17:05

of humanity, and if I have succeeded,

17:07

I am amply rewarded in the gratifying

17:09

reflection of having done so. More

17:12

wealth could not increase either my fame

17:14

or my happiness. It might undoubtedly

17:17

enable me to put four horses to my carriage,

17:19

but what would it avail me to have it

17:22

said that Sir Humphrey drives his carriage

17:24

in four I love that. In

17:27

March of eighteen seventeen, Davy was thanked

17:29

for his service to miners at a general meeting

17:32

of mine owners that was held in Newcastle.

17:35

He was also awarded the Royal Society's

17:37

Rumford Medal and made a baronet. But

17:41

Humphrey Davy was not the only

17:43

person to develop a miner's

17:45

safety lamp. Around this time,

17:48

George Stevenson call your Engineer,

17:50

at Killingworth Colliery in Northumberland,

17:53

had also developed a safety lamp, pretty

17:55

much by trial and error. This

17:58

lamp was known as the Jordi and it was popular

18:00

in the area near where he lived. Like

18:03

Davey's initial design used a

18:05

long glass chimney as well as a

18:07

series of tubes to allow air end

18:09

to fuel the flame. The chimney

18:11

was also protected by a metal tube

18:14

that had holes through it. Stevenson

18:17

contended that Davy had stolen his

18:19

design, while Davy called Stevenson

18:22

a pirate and a thief, so that went

18:24

great. Eventually, a committee

18:26

was convened in Newcastle in November of eighteen

18:28

seventeen, with Royal Society President

18:31

Joseph Banks presiding. They

18:33

cleared Davy of all suspicion of having

18:35

stolen the design of the lamp. But to

18:38

be clear, these were also Davy's friends

18:40

and scientific associates. Yeah,

18:43

and the you know, Stevenson was not regarded

18:45

as a scientist. He was a mine engineer.

18:48

A third contender for the

18:50

inventor of the minor safety lamp was

18:52

William Reid Clanny, doctor from Ireland.

18:56

Davy had examined one of Clanny's

18:58

lamps in October of eighteen fifteen, so

19:01

this lamp definitely existed before

19:03

any of Davey's were being tested in

19:05

the mines. But Clanne's

19:07

lamp was also a lot different from Davy's

19:10

or Stevenson's. It was airtight

19:12

and the air was supplied to the

19:14

interior of the lamp through bellows.

19:18

This meant that using this lamp required

19:21

the mine to hire a boid to pump the

19:23

bellows while the lamp was being

19:25

used. All three of these

19:27

designs were in use in different parts

19:29

of Britain and Ireland in the early nineteenth

19:32

century, with different designs being

19:34

popular in different regions, but

19:36

they did not totally eliminate mine explosions.

19:40

Each type of lamp worked as long

19:42

as it was used correctly and as long

19:44

as it was in good repair, but there

19:46

was a lot that could go wrong. The

19:48

designs that used glass chimneys meant

19:51

that those chimneys were breakable, so if a lamp

19:53

was dropped and broken, flammable

19:55

gas around it could still explode. The

19:58

wire mesh used in Davy's lamp could

20:00

also corrode over time, leaving holes

20:02

large enough for flames to pass through. Sometimes

20:06

miners opened the cover or bypassed

20:08

the safety to do something like light a pipe,

20:11

and some didn't want to use them at all because they

20:13

were more cumbersome and unwieldy than

20:15

other light sources. Davy's

20:18

refusal to patent his lamp, which

20:20

we read earlier, makes them sound pretty

20:22

noble. But he was also vocally

20:24

critical of these other two lamps and

20:26

the men who had developed them, and he

20:28

was really self righteous when it came to his descriptions

20:31

of his own work. He was

20:34

really angry about the fact that there were

20:36

people who thought the other lamps

20:38

were better, or that he did not deserve

20:40

any credit for the one that he had developed.

20:43

I read a paper that argued

20:46

that, according to his behavior in this

20:48

whole incident, he was a narcissist.

20:52

Some of Davy's critics on this, though, were also

20:55

very vocal. There were people who favored

20:57

the Stevenson or Clanny lamps who called Davy's

21:00

lamp the murder lamp. Oh

21:03

bless him. It just sounds like a lot of people mad

21:05

that they they're not getting lauded. Davy

21:08

went on another trip to Europe after finishing

21:10

his work on a minor safety lamp,

21:13

and while there he tried and failed to

21:15

find a way to unroll and read a scroll

21:18

that had been retrieved from herculaneum.

21:21

Was also involved chemistry. He didn't just try

21:23

to open it up, but the

21:25

fact that this came up recently on Unearthed.

21:28

I know how excited would he be to

21:30

see the stuff that people have developed today? He

21:32

might be mad? Uh.

21:37

In eighteen eighteen, Mary Shelley published

21:40

her book Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus,

21:42

and in this book, Professor Waldman

21:45

is a chemist who delivers a lecture

21:47

that's attended by Victor Frankenstein,

21:50

and this chemist inspires

21:52

Victor Frankenstein's later work. Sometimes

21:55

Humphrey Davy is cited as an inspiration

21:58

for this character, while other people cite

22:00

a similarity to various other British

22:02

scientists from the early nineteenth century.

22:06

Mary Shelley definitely went to some

22:08

of Davy's lectures, and of course she

22:10

was also influenced by the work of the

22:12

Romantic poets like Samuel Taylor,

22:14

Coleridge Shoe we talked about in Part one,

22:17

who were part of Davy's social circle. Yeah,

22:19

they had a lot of the Venn diagram of their

22:21

social groups. Has Humphrey

22:26

Davies's career as a chemist had been groundbreaking

22:29

and influential, but that is

22:31

not the note that he went out on, and we'll talk

22:33

about that after a sponsor break. In

22:45

eighteen twenty, Joseph Banks,

22:47

president of the Royal Society died.

22:51

Banks had been president of the Royal Society

22:53

for forty two years. His

22:56

interim successor was William Hyde

22:58

Wallaston, who served until an election could

23:01

be held, and then Humphrey Davy

23:03

was elected in November of eighteen twenty.

23:06

Davy's tenure as President of the Royal

23:09

Society really did not go well.

23:12

Under Banks's four plus decades of leadership,

23:14

the Royal Society had become part

23:17

social club for gentlemen and part scientific

23:19

institution. Some of its

23:22

members were Banks's personal friends who

23:24

didn't necessarily have any interest or aptitude

23:27

in science. Davy wanted

23:29

to reform the Royal Society into a bona

23:31

fide scientific institution, and of

23:33

course that raised the ire

23:35

of people who liked it the way it

23:37

was. Divisions developed between

23:39

the people who wanted reform and

23:42

the ones who wanted to keep things the way they were,

23:44

the way that Banks had done it. Yeah,

23:46

this is also connected to the whole process

23:49

of professionalizing and formalizing

23:52

scientific fields. His

23:55

presidency also threw a wrench and to his

23:58

relationship with Michael Faraday. Faraday

24:01

had worked with Davy for eight years at

24:03

this point, and he'd gone from basically being

24:05

Davy's scribe and assistant to

24:08

a respected scientist in his own

24:10

right. He could no longer be described

24:13

as anything like an apprentice, and he didn't

24:15

need Davy's supervision. But

24:17

the Royal Society also had its own internal

24:20

politics that Faraday kind of ran a foul

24:22

of. Like William Hyde, Wallaston

24:24

was doing a lot of work with electromagnetism,

24:28

and he seemed to think that Faraday's

24:30

work on the same subject was horning

24:33

in on his own territory. And

24:35

then Faraday felt like Davy did

24:37

not give him enough support in this

24:39

dispute. Things became even

24:42

more contentious when Faraday did an experiment

24:44

that produced liquefied chlorine. It

24:47

was an experiment that Davy had suggested

24:50

he do, but producing liquid chlorine

24:52

was not part of the expected outcome. Davy

24:55

thought Faraday should have credited him when

24:57

he reported the results of this experiment. Faraday

25:01

did not. Then, in

25:03

eighteen twenty three, Faraday applied

25:05

to be a fellow of the Royal Society, so

25:08

taken on his owns, probably would not have

25:10

been very controversial. Like we said, he

25:12

had developed his own reputation

25:14

by this point, but there had

25:16

been so much nepotism in

25:19

the Royal Society under Joseph Banks.

25:22

Davey felt like if he supported Faraday's

25:24

application, it would look like he was just doing

25:26

the same thing, so he

25:29

told Faraday to withdraw his

25:31

application. Faraday

25:34

refused, and ultimately did become

25:36

a Royal Society fellow. A

25:38

number of sources that I read when

25:40

I was working on this episode characterized

25:43

Davy's behavior here as really

25:45

arrogant and petty, and suggest

25:47

that he was suffering from kind of an overinflated

25:50

ego after his earlier years

25:52

of such tremendous success. My

25:55

first thought is, okay, just recuse yourself

25:57

from that process, dude. I

26:01

don't know what the bylaws were like, but it does seem

26:03

like there would have been other options. Yeah.

26:06

Uh. Davy also had some setbacks

26:08

in his professional work. In eighteen

26:10

twenty three, he was asked to find a solution for

26:13

the corrosion that was degrading the copper

26:15

sheeting used on the hulls of warships.

26:18

This was part of an effort to scale back

26:20

on naval spending, since at that point Britain

26:23

wasn't at war with another maritime power.

26:25

Britain was at war with the Ashanti

26:27

Empire, but that did not involve ships

26:30

beyond transporting troops to what is now Ghana.

26:33

Davy's solution was based on the idea

26:35

of cathodic protection. Soldering

26:37

another type of metal to the copper gave

26:40

it a negative electrical charge which stopped

26:42

the corrosion, and after testing

26:44

this in a lab, Davy had Faraday try

26:46

this on three ships in a dockyard, and

26:49

that seemed to work. However,

26:52

it turned out that the copper was what had

26:54

been keeping barnacles and other

26:56

sea life from adhering to the hulls,

27:00

and this solution prevented

27:02

that from happening. It had been sort

27:04

of leeching stuff into the water that was

27:06

keeping the barnacles

27:09

from making their homes on the hull

27:11

of the ship. So instead of

27:14

hulls that were covered and corroded

27:16

copper that needed to be replaced, the

27:18

hulls were instead covered in copper

27:21

that was covered in barnacles,

27:23

and eventually enough barnacles would

27:26

affect the ship's performance. This

27:28

is another moment that some sources

27:31

interpret as coming from arrogance,

27:34

because those miners' lamps

27:36

had worked in the field the same as they had

27:38

in the lab. And Davy seems

27:40

to have just assumed that the same would

27:42

be true of the ship protectors.

27:46

In eighteen twenty four, Davey founded

27:48

the s and Am Club along with Secretary

27:50

of the Admiralty John Wilson, in

27:52

part to try to cut down on some of the divisions

27:55

that were plaguing the Royal Society by

27:57

giving people who had ties to the Admiralty

28:00

another outlet. Davy

28:02

served as the club's first chair and Faraday

28:04

was its first secretary. Two

28:07

years later, Davy and Stamford Raffles

28:09

founded the Zoological Society of London,

28:11

which helps at the stage for the establishment

28:14

of the London Zoo. In September

28:17

of eighteen twenty six, Davey's mother

28:19

died, and he attributed some of his

28:21

own increasing health problems to

28:23

her passing. He

28:25

was reelected as President of the Royal Society

28:28

in November of that year, but at that point

28:30

he was obviously unwell. A

28:33

month later, he had a stroke at

28:35

the age of forty eight, while

28:37

his father also died at a really young

28:39

age. There is some speculation that

28:42

Davy's years of self experimentation

28:45

may have been a factor in this early

28:48

shift in his health. Humphrey's

28:50

brother John took him to Italy to try

28:52

to recover, and although his condition did

28:55

improve, he wrote to his wife and

28:57

to Davy's Gilbert to say he planned to resign

28:59

as pre president of the Royal Society. He

29:02

did resign on November sixth, eighteen

29:04

twenty seven, and he was replaced by Davies

29:07

Gilbert. He also worked on a

29:09

book on phishing called Salmonia

29:12

or Days of fly Fishing. Humphrey

29:15

asked his wife to come join him in Italy,

29:17

but she couldn't, so he returned to England

29:20

for a time before heading back to

29:22

the continent, this time accompanied

29:24

by a medical student named James Tobin.

29:27

It occurs to me I should have looked up whether

29:29

Tobin was related to his godfather. I

29:32

don't actually know. Maybe Tobin

29:34

took dictation for another book of

29:37

Davies, and that was a set of memoirs

29:39

and dialogues called Consolations

29:42

in Travel or The Last Days

29:44

of a Philosopher, and that was published

29:46

posthumously. Humphrey

29:49

had another stroke in February of eighteen

29:51

twenty nine, and his wife and brother

29:53

were sent for Humphrey Davy

29:55

died on May twenty eighth, eighteen twenty

29:57

nine, at the age of fifty in Geneva, Switzerland.

30:01

He had a fear of being buried alive, and

30:03

he had asked for his burial to be delayed

30:05

to make sure he really was deceased,

30:08

but the laws in Geneva did not allow for

30:10

that to happen. He was buried

30:12

in Geneva, and his wife Jane, later had

30:14

a memorial tablet placed in Westminster

30:17

Abbey. Davy had been incredibly

30:19

well known and well respected during his

30:22

lifetime. I mean we talked about him discovering a

30:24

bunch of different elements and inventing

30:26

the miner's safety lamp, although

30:29

there were other people who did the same, but he was

30:31

soon really overshadowed by Michael

30:33

Faraday. Sometimes Faraday

30:36

is described as Davy's greatest

30:38

discovery. As a side

30:40

note, when Faraday was offered

30:42

the presidency of the Royal Society on two

30:44

different occasions, he said no thanks. There

30:47

is some presumption that his experience

30:50

watching Davy go through that made him like,

30:52

I don't want any part of that. Hard

30:54

pass. Also, in

30:57

two thousand and eight, after the Royal Society

30:59

of Chemist asked for help in finding the

31:01

medal that had been awarded to him by

31:03

the French. Family members reported

31:06

that at some point after Humphrey's death, Jane

31:08

threw that French medal right into the sea.

31:12

She said that it brought

31:14

up bad memories. He didn't like

31:16

France. Let's get rid of him. That

31:19

was the worst trip of our lives. Yeah,

31:23

anyway, Humphrey Davies kind of a

31:25

journey. That's where I have landed

31:28

after all of this. We'll

31:31

talk about him some more on Friday and the behind

31:34

the scenes. I

31:36

have an email from Phil Phil

31:39

Route and said, I just listened to your show on

31:41

etiquette. It took me back to memories

31:44

of my childhood. We had a family friend

31:46

that was a socialite. We would often see

31:48

her picture in the society section of the paper.

31:51

She was often attending the best events throughout

31:53

town, charities and other big events. She

31:55

would often try to teach us proper etiquette.

31:58

I have a feeling she wasn't sure we were getting proper

32:00

education in these areas from our parents. I

32:03

grew up in a family of four boys.

32:05

So she gave us a gift one year. The gift

32:08

was a book published in nineteen sixty nine,

32:10

Stand Up, Shake hands, and say,

32:12

how do you do. I remember

32:15

looking through it as a kid, but the sections on attending

32:17

someone's debutante ball not sure if

32:19

that's what they were called in the book seemed so foreign

32:22

to me. A few years ago, we

32:24

were cleaning out my mom's stuff after she'd died.

32:27

My brothers and I had a great weekend of telling stories.

32:29

As we went through all of the items and divided

32:32

them, we came across this book.

32:34

My brothers are all a few years older than I

32:36

am. They told stories about how strange

32:39

the book was to them when they got it, and the

32:41

only thing they really used it for was to

32:43

learn how to tie a tie. I

32:45

felt better about my thoughts about the book

32:47

because that was the only thing I used it for as

32:50

well. My dad moved out of our house when I was about

32:52

nine, so I didn't have that around teach me that.

32:55

I always thought the book was a little pretentious

32:57

and stuffy for our lifestyle, but

32:59

it brought great memories of our dear family.

33:01

Friend. What of my brothers has the book at his house,

33:04

so I can't refer back to it or confirm exactly

33:06

what is in the book. Your podcast stirred that memory

33:09

for me. Thanks for your show. I

33:11

am including a picture of Willow, our saint

33:13

shepherd. She is a goofy dog, but

33:16

we love her. Phil. Thank you so much,

33:18

Phil for this email. I love this

33:20

whole story. I did you. I

33:23

think that's a great use for that book. It gave you one

33:25

life skill. That's all you need out of a book for it to

33:27

be valuable. Yeah, and

33:30

also reminds me a little bit of my

33:32

spouse, who's not the youngest but is also one

33:35

of four boys who lost

33:38

his dad at a young age, so also

33:40

raised by a mom. And I'm like,

33:43

did they have any etiquette

33:45

books to try to teach them things at their house?

33:47

Most of the stories I hear about their growing

33:50

up involve my

33:52

spouse being put into dangerous situations

33:55

by his older brother. Oh yeah.

33:59

Also, will Hell is such

34:01

a sweet looking talk I mean, and is

34:03

cute standing in some snow. Cuteness

34:06

cuteness beyond all reckoning. Yes, So,

34:09

thank you so much Phil for this email. If you'd like

34:11

to send us a note, we're at History podcast

34:13

at iHeartRadio dot com and

34:16

uh you can subscribe to the

34:18

show wherever you'd like to get podcasts,

34:21

including the iHeartRadio app, any number

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of other podcast apps, and on Friday,

34:26

we'll talk about our own behind the scenes thoughts

34:29

on this episode. Stuff

34:36

You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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