Dear blog,<\/p>\n
This week I\u2019ve been working in Tyne and Wear Archive Services, Durham County Record Office and Durham University Library. All three places were hugely busy: the first two with people looking up their family histories and the latter with academics. The business made me more determined to try to increase accessibility to the University of Salford\u2019s archives. It would be so brilliant to have a vibrant, busy reading room in which to read the unique materials we have.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve mainly been reading letters from Davy to a mining engineer in Wallsend called John Buddle about the controversy over the so-called \u2018Davy lamp\u2019. George Stephenson claimed to have invented a miner\u2019s safety lamp first (I\u2019ve found out that this was nick-named the \u2018Geordie\u2019), before Davy. Explosions in mines were a huge problem at the beginning of the nineteenth century and Davy had been asked to take a look into what could be done because by then he had secured his reputation as one of the foremost chemists of the day.<\/p>\n
Our letters edition will make many of these letters available for the first time to the public, though they have been read by some scholars, notably the Head of Collections at the Royal Institutions, Frank James, who was kind enough to lend me his notes. My time at the Tyne and Wear Archive was remarkably stress-free because the Davy letters had been copied in a fair hand, meaning that I didn\u2019t have to squint and sweat over Davy\u2019s often very difficult to read handwriting.<\/p>\n
In an early letter, John Buddle speaks of the \u2018nibbling envy and mischievous insinuations of the philosophical Empirics\u2019 to Davy (15\/6\/1816). Davy himself is far less subtle in his condemnation of those who favoured Stephenson\u2019s claim to the invention. He speaks of their conduct as being \u2018marked by indelicacy as well as impropriety\u2019 in a letter of 31\/10\/1816. His anger rises as the letters and months pass by until I read in a letter from Davy to Buddle dated 10\/11\/1817: \u2018It is even said by them that no hostile measure is intended towards me; but that the object is to raise a fund for a poor ingenious man (or a thief and a liar) \u2014\u2014 whose reward ought to be the Pillory.\u2019 This is pretty strong stuff; Stephenson is denounced an impostor by Davy and the full force of Davy\u2019s institutional influence is brought to bear on proving that Stephenson\u2019s early models for the lamp would not have worked.<\/p>\n
The whole episode left a rather nasty taste in my mouth, I suppose; with hindsight, Stephenson is such an important part of our national heritage and Davy in these letters often refers to him as illiterate and with the suggestion that he is beneath him in terms social class and scientific reputation. It’s been odd because I’ve walked past Stephenson’s statue in Newcastle every day that I’ve walked to the archive. Writing to Buddle on 3 March 1818, claiming that this is the last word on the subject, Davy write that: \u2018In the scientific world [Stephenson\u2019s] claims have met the most sovereign contempt\u2019. This is an interesting choice of adjective.<\/p>\n
Whatever the truth of the matter, and I need to find out more about what\u2019s been written on this subject, there are many assertions of the life-saving properties of Davy\u2019s lamp. I don\u2019t know when the lamp first acquired its eponymous name but the lamps are referred to as \u2018Davys\u2019 in a letter of Buddle\u2019s (1 Jan 1824), where he also describes how each pit has a \u2018Davy Man\u2019 to \u2018keep the lamps clean and in good repair\u2019.<\/p>\n
The letters have been fascinating to read and I hope that when they\u2019re published they will shine a new light on this debate and controversy, even if Davy doesn\u2019t come off so well by these means. I\u2019m nearly at the end of my British Academy grant now \u2013 only one archive trip left. It\u2019s been hard work but immensely interesting and rewarding.<\/p>\n
We are working hard on the programme for event five in the LitSciMed training programme at the moment too, and I\u2019ll let you know when the application forms are available online.<\/p>\n
Best,<\/p>\n
Sharon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear blog, This week I\u2019ve been working in Tyne and Wear Archive Services, Durham County Record Office and Durham University Library. All three places were hugely busy: the first two with people looking up their family histories and the latter … Continue reading