Sir Humphry Davy and the coal miners of the world: a commentary on Davy (1816) ‘An account of an invention for giving light in explosive mixtures of fire-damp in coal mines’

Abstract

In the period between 1815 and 1818, Sir Humphry Davy read four papers to the Royal Society and published a monograph dealing with a safety lamp for coal miners, all of which record in detail the experimental work that he carried out, with his assistant Michael Faraday, so as to determine how to prevent catastrophic accidents in coal mines by the explosion of fire-damp (methane) in the presence of a naked flame. This article describes the key experiments that he performed at the Royal Institution and some of the subsequent trials made in the coal mines of the north of England. It begins, however, with an account of Davy's prior achievements in science before he was approached for help by the clergymen and doctors in the Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne areas. There is little doubt that the Davy lamp, from the 1820s onwards, transformed the coal industry worldwide. It also profoundly influenced the science of combustion, and in the words of a pioneer in that field, W. A. Bone, FRS, ‘There is no better model of logical experimental procedure, accurate reasoning, philosophical outlook and fine literary expression.’ It is a remarkable fact that it took Davy essentially only two weeks from the time he was given samples of fire-damp to solve the problem and to devise his renowned miner's safety lamp. A brief account is also given of the contemporaneous invention of a safety lamp by George Stephenson, and of some of Davy's subsequent accomplishments. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society .