Humphry Davy - Biography

Biography

Davy was born in Penzance, Cornwall, England, on 17 December 1778. The Madron parish register records ‘Humphry Davy, son of Robert Davy, baptised at Penzance, January 22nd, 1779.’ Robert Davy was a wood carver in Penzance and pursued his art more for enjoyment than for profit. As the representative of an old family (monuments to his ancestors in Ludgvan parish church date as far back as 1635), he became possessor of a modest patrimony. His wife, Grace Millet, came from an old but no longer rich family. Her parents died within a few hours of each other from malignant fever, whereupon Grace and her two sisters were adopted by John Tonkin, a surgeon in the town. Robert Davy and his wife became the parents of five children — two boys, Humphry, the eldest, and John, and three girls.

In Davy's childhood the family moved from Penzance to Varfell, their family estate in Ludgvan. Davy's boyhood was spent partly with his parents and partly with Tonkin, who placed him at a preparatory school kept by a Mr. Bushell, who was so much struck with the boy's progress that he persuaded Davy's father to send him to a better school. Davy was at an early age placed at the Penzance Grammar School, then under the care of the Rev. J. C. Coryton. Numerous anecdotes show that Davy was a precocious boy, possessing a remarkable memory and being singularly rapid in acquiring knowledge of books. He was especially attracted by John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, and he delighted in reading history. When but eight years of age he would collect a number of boys, and standing on a cart in the market-place address them on the subject of his latest reading. He delighted in the folklore of this remote district, and became, as he himself tells us, a ‘tale-teller.’ The ‘applause of my companions,’ he says, ‘was my recompense for punishments incurred for being idle.’ These conditions developed a love of poetry and the composition of verses and ballads.

At the same time Davy acquired a taste for experimental science. This was mainly due to a member of the Society of Friends named Robert Dunkin. A saddler and a man of original mind, Dunkin constructed for himself an electrical machine, voltaic piles, and Leyden jars, and made models to illustrate mathematical principles. Using these he instructed Davy in the rudiments of experimental science. As professor at the Royal Institution, Davy would later repeat many of the ingenious experiments which he had learned from his Quaker instructor. From the Penzance school Davy went in 1793 to Truro Grammar School, finishing his education there under the Rev. Dr. Cardew, who, in a later letter to Davies Gilbert, said dryly: “I could not discern the faculties by which he was afterwards so much distinguished.” Davy said himself: “I consider it fortunate I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study... What I am I made myself.”