{"id":4782,"date":"2023-09-07T09:47:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T09:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=4782"},"modified":"2023-09-07T09:47:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T09:47:13","slug":"archive-spotlight-humphry-davys-notebooks-and-the-navy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=4782","title":{"rendered":"Archive Spotlight: Humphry Davy’s Notebooks and the Navy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We really need your help in completing the project to transcribe Humphry Davy\u2019s notebooks<\/a>\u2026 Read on to see something of Davy\u2019s life two hundred years ago and the kinds of scandal your transcription could unearth\u2026  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 1823, Humphry Davy was asked by the Commissioners of the Navy Board to investigate why the copper sheeting on the bottom of ships was corroding, reducing the speed of these vessels greatly. He regarded the matter as one of national importance and immediately referred it to the Council of the Royal Society. They set up a Committee but it was Davy alone who investigated the matter. He was sent samples of the copper used to sheathe two naval ships, the HMS Batavia<\/em> (a former floating battery that was disposed of in 1823) and Leonidas<\/em> (a thirty-six-gun fifth-rate\u00a0frigate launched in 1807). The way that Davy felt called to action, and the patriotic fervour with which he responded, was not unlike the earlier episode of the miners\u2019 safety lamp in 1816. The two episodes would end in a similarly less than ideal manner.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sir Humphry Davy, Bt by Thomas Phillips<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At this point in his life, Davy was largely a man of leisure, having married the wealthy widow Jane Apreece in 1812, been granted a baronetcy, and resigned from the work at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He had been elected President of the Royal Society in 1820 and held a weekly soir\u00e9e for the most eminent scientific men at his house; his letters from this period are replies to people who have sent him their latest books, their accounts of voyages, and who ask his advice on an array of subjects. Davy was highly aware of his status as PRS and would not be tainted by suggestions of monetary gain or reward. For example, and again in keeping with his work on the safety lamp that he performed gratis, he tells one respondent that as President of the Royal Society it would not be proper for him to comment on an invention that was to be patented. A patriotic call from the British Navy was a different matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1824 Davy confidently assured the Admiralty and Navy Board that he had found a fool-proof solution: the fitting of zinc or cast-iron protectors. Davy was in Portsmouth from 19 to 23 February and there he experimented with the royal yacht Royal George<\/em>, the twenty-eight-gun HMS Samarang<\/em>, and the ten-gun brig HMS Manly<\/em>. His method became known as \u2018Davy\u2019s protectors\u2019 just as the miners\u2019 safety lamp became known as the \u2018Davy lamp.\u2019 Unfortunately, what had worked in the laboratory did not work at sea and the electro-plating had a chemical side-effect. It resulted in the ships\u2019 bottoms being fouled, thus slowing them down even more. The whole episode was a disaster for Davy who, nonetheless, maintained throughout that there was no problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Byron had mentioned Davy\u2019s safety lamp in Canto I of Don Juan<\/em>: \u2018Sir Humphrey Davy\u2019s lantern, by which coals \/ Are safely mined for\u2019.<\/em> Davy, in turn, wrote some Don Juan<\/em>-esque lines of his own in a short, private, unpublished poem in a notebooks called \u2018On the Bubbles\u2019, dated December 1823. Davy rewrote Byron\u2019s famous line \u2018This is the patent-age of new inventions\u2019, which had alluded to Davy\u2019s achievements, to echo the rhythm but put forward his own gripes. It is unusual for Davy to write satirically and the new tone of this poem borrows from Byron\u2019s cynical perspective. The poem has recently been transcribed as part of our AHRC-funded project crowdsourcing transcriptions of Davy\u2019s extant notebooks and begins thus in a rather struggling fashion: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Bubbles
This is the age for humbug &<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whoever possesses them nothing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

can want […]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem moves to consider the prevention of corrosion occurring on the copper bottoms of ships, which was clearly on Davy\u2019s mind at this time. The manuscript reveals that Davy knew about Robert Mushet\u2019s patent, awarded on 14 June 1823 for a \u2018Process for Improving the Quality of Copper, and of Alloyed Copper, Applicable to the Sheathing of Ships, and to Other Purposes\u2019, before there is mention of Mushet in Davy\u2019s letters. Davy takes his revenge privately here in a poem, just as he had in another unpublished poem in the same notebook, where he gave vent to his true feelings on the safety lamp controversy: \u2018Thoughts after the ingratitude<\/em> of the Northumbrians with respect to the Safety Lamp<\/em>\u2019. In \u2018On the Bubbles\u2019, Davy attempts to imitate Byron\u2019s voice and seemingly cavalier attitude: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have copper that will not disperse in the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The patent secures it quite from decay  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And make it in voyages bright as the day, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But every one knows who is not an ass<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That the work of this copper depends upon brass<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davy is here criticising Mushet\u2019s patent. Rather than the solution Mushet proposes, he thinks that the Navy\u2019s ships need \u2018Davy\u2019s protectors\u2019. Davy\u2019s resentment is demonstrable in these lines, and he chooses to express it in a poem. Transcribing the notebooks has unearthed many moments like this: please do consider taking a look at the project and making such discoveries yourself!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out the website: https:\/\/www.zooniverse.org\/projects\/humphrydavy\/davy-notebooks-project<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharon Ruston
Lancaster University<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We really need your help in completing the project to transcribe Humphry Davy\u2019s notebooks\u2026 Read on to see something of Davy\u2019s life two hundred years ago and the kinds of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[93,96,94,95,98,97],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4785,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4782\/revisions\/4785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}