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Between Hostile Camps: Sir Humphry Davy's Presidency of The Royal Society of London, 1820–1827

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

David Philip Miller
David Philip Miller
Affiliation:
School of History and Philosophy of Science, University of New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales, Australia, 2033.
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Extract

The career of Humphry Davy (1778–1829) is one of the fairy tales of early nineteenth-century British science. His rise from obscure Cornish origins to world-wide eminence as a chemical discoverer, to popular celebrity amongst London's scientific audiences, to a knighthood from the Prince Regent, and finally to the Presidency of the Royal Society, provide apposite material for Smilesian accounts of British society as open to talents. But the use of Davy's career to illustrate the thesis that ‘genius will out’ is not without its problems. As Davy began to reap the benefits of his early chemical discoveries, and to acquire status and wealth, his dedication to research waned. The ‘new’ Davy who emerged in the years after Waterloo, though admired by many sections of the metropolitan scientific community, was also widely criticized. Ambivalence became marked with Davy's election to, and conduct in, the Presidency of the Royal Society.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 1 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1983

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References

I thank the Librarian of the Royal Society of London for permission to quote from the John Herschel papers. Material from the J.E. Smith and William Swainson papers is quoted by courtesy of the Linnean Society of London. Arnold Thackray, Jeffrey Sturchio, Robert Bud and an anonymous referee contributed valuable criticism.

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33 Baily, Francis to Babbage, Charles, 11 11 1820Google Scholar, British Library, Add. MSS. 37182, f. 291. On Baily see Horton-Smith, L. G. H., The Baily family of Thatcham and later of Speen and of Newbury all in the country of Berkshire, Leicester, 1951, pp. 69–80Google Scholar and Herschel, J. F. W., ‘Memoir of Francis Baily’, Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1844, 6, 89–121.Google Scholar

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85 The nascent reform group were uncertain about Davy's attitude toward the literary dimension of the Banksian Learned Empire. Thus, when Herschel learned of the intention of several literary Fellows of the Royal Society to form a Royal Society of Literature, he wrote to Babbage: ‘What the deuce is this new Royal Society—I thought at first it had been only a knot of dilettanti who had got the King's ear in a drunken frolic, and intended to establish something like the “Society of Arcadians” in Italy for the cultivation of pastoral poetry. But it seems now to have taken a serious turn. I hope Sir H. will not take it into his head to propose an incorporation?’ (Herschel, to Babbage, , 19 12, 1820, RSHP, 2.150).Google Scholar

86 Quoted in Treneer, , op. cit. (65), p. 189.Google Scholar

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