Dear blog,<\/p>\n
The programme and application form for Event 5 of the LitSciMed training programme is now online at http:\/\/www.litscimed.org.uk\/page\/event5. The deadline for applications is Tuesday 1st March.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been in Woodhorn Museum (http:\/\/www.experiencewoodhorn.com\/) since Tuesday, working in the Northumberland archives where there are 54 letters from Humphry Davy to the Reverend John Hodgson. These letters have never been published before, which is very exciting, though they have been read and used in articles and books (including Frank James\u2019s excellent article on the Davy lamp in the Transaction of the Newcomen Society in 2005).<\/p>\n
The museum is an odd place; it\u2019s on the site of, and retains many of the buildings of, the coal mine at Woodhorn, which once employed 2000 miners but stopped working in 1981. A new building on the site now houses exhibitions relating to this and the Northumberland archives, which were, as with those at Newcastle, busy with people searching for their family histories when I was there.<\/p>\n
One of the Davy letters was in an autograph book (I looked at one of these in Durham University archives too, but that had a lock and key!). This one held letters by Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli (it was organised alphabetically), a certificate for a course of lectures on surgery signed by Matthew Baillie; a letter from Lord Eldon (the Chancellor), Pierce Egan (the journalist), the Duchess of Devonshire; lawyers, politicians, naval officers, artists, and aristocracy. It was interesting to see how many of these figures I knew, who had been considered worth collecting at the time and who was still well-known now.<\/p>\n
The rest of the Davy letters were collected within a single book; they were often long and complex and all concerned the miner\u2019s safety lamp that Davy devised and his subsequent battle to persuade people that he had invented it and not George Stephenson. It ranged, then, much the same ground as those that I had read in Newcastle to John Buddle. It was great to be immersed in similar topics and feel like I was getting a handle on at least this one episode in Davy\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
I think one of the letters has been mis-ordered and that it is January rather than June 1816. The evidence is that the postmark looks more to me like a JA than a JU plus there\u2019s a superscript \u2018y\u2019 in the date given by Davy at the top of his letter. Also, it fits in terms of subject matter, the letter promised in a note of 15th Jan. If so, this is the first reference to Stevenson\u2019s lamp. This was potentially a big discovery for me and it doesn\u2019t appear to have been picked up by others.<\/p>\n
Here are some nuggets from these letters that give you a sense of how Davy felt about Stevenson; on the 8 Feb 1816 [which really was 1817!], Davy writes: \u2018His present lamp is clearly pilfered directly from wire gauze safe lamp which He has seen.\u2019; \u2018He is so ignorant that I doubt if now he has made a safe lamp.\u2019; \u2018Depend upon it Stevenson is not a man whose testimony is worth any thing. \u2014 The persons who have read his pamphlet here vote him a thief & not a clever thief. \u2014\u2018; \u2018I never heard of Stevenson till sometime in Jan y 1816 when one morning Sir Jos: Banks referred me to a paper in the Monthly Magazine (Mr Ws account of Stevenson\u2019s lamp) & said \u201cHere\u2019s a fellow who has stolen your lamp.\u201d\u2019 Stevenson is always just called Stevenson (very rarely even Stephenson); he gets no title, unlike the others who get called Mr. The only others who get no title are instrument makers.<\/p>\n
I was amused and intrigued to see that in the corrections he requested for a newspaper article on the subject Davy wrote (Sept 1816): \u2018I think two or three expressions may be altered as rather too poetical for the society\u2019 \u2018\u201cwith flickering and roaring\u201d should be altered to with violence and noise.\u2019 In the end, the \u2018poetical\u2019 expressions went in as they were but it\u2019s interesting to see that Davy, who is usually thought of as writing science in rather a poetical manner, was trying to remove this.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve had a thoroughly enjoyable week; back to work and teaching tomorrow though I\u2019ve been thinking up ideas for training sessions where the examples would be Davy letters. It would be good to keep moving ahead with the letters.<\/p>\n
All best,<\/p>\n
Sharon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear blog, The programme and application form for Event 5 of the LitSciMed training programme is now online at http:\/\/www.litscimed.org.uk\/page\/event5. The deadline for applications is Tuesday 1st March. I\u2019ve been in Woodhorn Museum (http:\/\/www.experiencewoodhorn.com\/) since Tuesday, working in the Northumberland … Continue reading