![]() National Portrait Gallery, London, CC BYīut, as Mary Shelley probably would have known, Davy was also a writer himself with close ties to the leading authors of his day. Portrait of Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell (1831-1840). Thanks to the help of thousands of volunteers, we’re creating the first digital edition of Davy’s 83 manuscript notebooks, an exciting and important collection that we’ll soon be able to share with readers all over the world. Through our work on the Davy Notebooks Project, we aim to change that. ![]() In more recent times, Davy’s star has waned. They would watch demonstrations of his work, which often included elaborate explosions and other breathtaking displays. ![]() Hundreds of members of the public, many of them women, crowded into the lecture theatre to hear the charismatic Davy speak about his cutting edge research. The carriage traffic jams caused by his keen audience led to the introduction of London’s first one-way street. In the first few years of the 19th century, there was no hotter spectacle in London than Davy’s lectures at the Royal Institution. ![]() But his wild popularity came as much from his influence on popular culture as it did from his contributions to chemistry and applied science. Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) is usually remembered as the inventor of a revolutionary miner’s safety lamp. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |