I first published this post in June 2013, near the time of the release of The Courting Campaign, which featured a hero who was a natural philosopher, what we would call a scientist today. Since then, I’ve featured a natural philosopher hero and heroine in Never Vie for a Viscount and, of course, in The Regent’s Devices trilogy. In the latest book, The Lady’s Triumph, my heroine Celeste Blanchard and her dear friend Loveday Penhale (penned by the amazing Shelley Adina), join the Prince’s Own Engineers, which includes real-life scientist, Humphry Davy.
Born in Cornwall into a woodcarver’s family, Davy did
extremely well in school and even considered becoming a poet before developing
a fascination for experiments. That fascination nearly saw him blowing up his
home several times as he was growing up. An old family friend apprenticed him
to a surgeon, but that connection led him to a variety of learned gentlemen who
furthered his interests in chemistry. One of these gentlemen, a Dr. Thomas
Beddoes, was sufficiently impressed with young Davy that he offered him a
position as his assistant at the Pneumatic Institution, a research facility for
the study of the medical properties of gasses. Davy started working there,
overseeing experiments, when he was twenty.
It was there that Davy became acquainted with nitrous oxide
or laughing gas. He was convinced it could be efficacious for something, but
many times he and his friends simply inhaled it for fun. It was said the large
chamber constructed for his experiments was really built for such inhalation
parties. On the other hand, he also conducted a number of experiments on
galvanism, generating electric current through chemistry. That also ended up
also having a nice sideline as a parlor trick.
Between patrons of the institution and trips to London, his
circle of influential friends continued to grow and soon included the poets
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. Various friends brought him to the
attention of the Royal Institution, that exalted haven of scientists. He was
soon assistant lecturer in chemistry there, where he also directed the
chemistry laboratory and helped edit the Institute’s journal.
Perhaps it was the poet in him, perhaps it was the fact that
he was kind on the eyes, but his lectures proved extremely popular, with scientists
and the public alike. At times he packed 500 people, many of them women, in the
lecture hall. He was full lecturer by the time he was 23 and knighted when he
was 34. Here’s a satirical look at one
such experiment and it’s rather rude results.
Shortly after his knighthood, he quit his position, married
a widow of some means, and embarked on a Grand Tour, starting in France, where
he was awarded a medal by Napoleon for his work in chemistry. They then
travelled to Florence, Rome, Naples, Milan, Munich, and Innsbruck before the
return of Napoleon from Elba forced them back to England.
More studies followed, including the invention of a lamp to
aid coal miners (and a cameo appearance helping my hero in The Courting Campaign). Davy is credited with discovering a number
of elements, including sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, boron, barium,
and chlorine as well as pioneering electro-chemistry. For his body of work, he
was ultimately granted a baronetcy, the highest honor given a natural philosopher
at that time. He eventually returned to Switzerland and died there of heart
disease. His last gift to the world was
a book compiling his thoughts on science and philosophy, in which he spoke
quite poetically and with touches of wry humor.
He never could stop the effects of laughing gas.
