Blowpipes and Batteries: Humphry Davy, Edward Daniel Clarke, and Experimental Chemistry in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain

Ambix ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 137-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian P. Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Humphry Davy

scholarly journals ‘A Kind of Geological Novel’: Wales and Travel Writing, 1783–1819

Romanticism ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Travel Writing ◽  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Romantic Period ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
Geological Map ◽  
Humphry Davy

This article explores the layered and multivocal nature of Romantic-period travel writing in Wales through the theme of geology. Beginning with an analysis of the spectral sense of place that emerges from William Smith's 1815 geological map of England and Wales, it considers a range of travel texts, from the stones and fossils of Thomas Pennant's A Tour in Wales (1778–83), to Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday's early nineteenth-century Welsh travels, to little-known manuscript accounts. Wales is still the least-researched of the home nations in terms of the Enlightenment and the Romantic period, despite recent and ongoing work that has done much to increase its visibility. Travel writing, meanwhile, is a form whose popularity in the period is now little recognised. These points doubly position Welsh travel writing on the fringes of our field, in an outlying location compounded by the genre's status as a category that defies easy definition.

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

1983 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Philip Miller
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
World Wide ◽  
British Society ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Science ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Royal Society Of London

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.

scholarly journals NEGATIVE GEOLOGY: HUMPHRY DAVY AND FORMING THE ROYAL INSTITUTION'S MINERAL COLLECTION, 1803–1806

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-332
Author(s):  
FRANK A. J. L. JAMES
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
Humphry Davy

This paper discusses Humphry Davy's geological interests and the formation of the Royal Institution's mineral collection during the early nineteenth century. Compared to other aspects of Davy and the Royal Institution, both these topics have been comparatively neglected in historical studies. The evidence supports the argument that applying scientific knowledge and method to practical problems was very difficult at the time. This suggests, despite the hopes entertained for it, that geology and mineralogy did not then contribute to the process of industrialisation, except in a negative manner. This failure may explain why the Royal Institution did not develop its mineral collection following initial enthusiasm.

Making hay when the sun don't shine: the Rev. William Richardson, science and society in early nineteenth-century Ireland

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (147) ◽  
pp. 396-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Blackstock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
European Language ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Old Irish ◽  
Lecture Series ◽  
British Scientist ◽  
Humphry Davy

So wrote William Hamilton Drummond in 1811 in reference to an extraordinary grass known by the old Irish name of fiorin (fiorthann), whose properties had been discovered by a fellow cleric, William Richardson (1740–1820). Richardson claimed fiorin could produce abundant winter hay and help reclaim bogland. Though Donaldson’sAgricultural biographyof 1854 dismissed Richardson’s work as ephemeral and careless, in 1806 the leading British scientist Humphry Davy visited Richardson and was impressed enough to recommend him to the Board of Agriculture and include fiorin in his famous lecture series translated into every major European language.

A history of some fruit models in wax and other materials: scientific teaching aids and courtly table decorations

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-JüRgen Lechtreck
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fruit Trees ◽  
Visual Aids ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Teaching Aids ◽  
Scientific Teaching ◽  
Glass Marble ◽  
History Of ◽  
By Products ◽  
Wax Models

Two early nineteenth century texts treating the production and use of wax models of fruit reveal the history of these objects in the context of courtly decoration. Both sources emphasise the models' decorative qualities and their suitability for display, properties which were not simply by-products of the realism that the use of wax allowed. Thus, such models were not regarded merely as visual aids for educational purposes. The artists who created them sought to entice collectors of art and natural history objects, as well as teachers and scientists. Wax models of fruits are known to have been collected and displayed as early as the seventeenth century, although only one such collection is extant. Before the early nineteenth century models of fruits made from wax or other materials (glass, marble, faience) were considered worthy of display because contemporaries attached great importance to mastery of the cultivation and grafting of fruit trees. This skill could only be demonstrated by actually showing the fruits themselves. Therefore, wax models made before the early nineteenth century may also be regarded as attempts to preserve natural products beyond the point of decay.

Disease and Civilization: A Scottish Atlantic Network of Physicians in the Enlightenment

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-216
Author(s):  
Sarah Irving-Stonebraker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
Practice Of Medicine ◽  
Benjamin Rush ◽  
American Physician ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
A Current

Through an examination of the extensive papers, manuscripts and correspondence of American physician Benjamin Rush and his friends, this article argues that it is possible to map a network of Scottish-trained physicians in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. These physicians, whose members included Benjamin Rush, John Redman, John Morgan, Adam Kuhn, and others, not only brought the Edinburgh model for medical pedagogy across the Atlantic, but also disseminated Scottish stadial theories of development, which they applied to their study of the natural history and medical practices of Native Americans and slaves. In doing so, these physicians developed theories about the relationship between civilization, historical progress and the practice of medicine. Exploring this network deepens our understanding of the transnational intellectual geography of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century British World. This article develops, in relation to Scotland, a current strand of scholarship that maps the colonial and global contexts of Enlightenment thought.

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