DAVY, HENRY (fl. 1829), architect and landscape painter, belonging to Ipswich, published at Southwold in 1818 and 1827 different sets of etchings illustrative of the antiquities of Suffolk and the noblemen's seats in the county. He also exhibited three landscape paintings in 1829 in the Suffolk Street exhibition of the Society of British Artists. His works as a practising architect are unknown, and he is now remembered chiefly as the author of the etchings first named, which are carefully and artistically executed, and form an important contribution to the antiquarian lore of the district. His works are:
- ‘A Set of ten Etchings illustrative of Beccles Church, and other Suffolk Antiquities,’ 1818.
- ‘Series of Etchings illustrative of the Architectural Antiquities of Suffolk, accompanied with an Historical Index, drawn and etched by Henry Davy,’ Southwold, 1827, fol.
- ‘Views of the Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen in Suffolk, from drawings by Henry Davy,’ Southwold, 1827, fol.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists; Lowndes's Bibl. Man.]
DAVY, Sir HUMPHRY (1778–1829), natural philosopher, was born at Penzance in Cornwall on 17 Dec. 1778. The parish register of Madron (the parish church) records 'Humphrey Davy, son of Robert Davy, baptized at Penzance, January 22nd, 1779. Robert Robert Davy was a wood-carver at Penzance, who pursued his art rather for amusement than profit. As the representative of an old family (monuments to his ancestors in Ludgvan Church date as far back as 1635) he became possessor of a modest patrimony. His wife, Grace Millett, came of an old but no longer wealthy family. Her parents died within a few hours of each other from malignant fever, when Grace and her two sisters were adopted by John Tonkin, an eminent surgeon in Penzance. Robert Davy and his wife became the parents of five children—two boys, Humphry, the eldest, and John, who is separately noticed, and three girls. In Davy's childhood the family removed from Penzance to Varfell, their family estate in Ludgvan. Davy's boyhood was spent partly with his parents and partly with Tonkin, who plaoeahim at a preparatory school kept by a Mr. Bushell, who was so much struck with the boy's progress that he persuaded the father to send him to a better school. He was at an early age placed at the Penzance grammar school, then under the car of the Rev. J.C. Coryton. Numerous anecdotes show that he was a precocious boy. He possessed a remarkable memory, and was singularly rapid in acquiring knowledge of books. He He was especially attracted by the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and he delighted in reading history. When but eight years of age he would collect a number of boys, and standing on a cart in the market-place address them on the subject of his latest reading. He delighted in the folklore of this remote district, and became, as he himself tells us, a 'tale-teller.' The 'applause of my companions,' he says, 'was my recompense for punishments incurred for being idle.' These conditions developed a love of poetry and the composition of verses and ballads. At the same time he acquired a taste for experimental science. This was mainly due to a member of the Society of Friends named Robert Dunkin, a saddler; a man of original mind and of the most varied acquirements. Dunkin constructed for himself an electrical machine, voltaic piles, and Leyden jars, and made models illustrative of the principles of mechanics. By the aid if these appliancs he instructed Davy in the rudiments of science. As professor at the Royal Institution, Davy went in 1793 to Truro, and finished his education under the Rev. Dr. Cardew, who, in a letter to Davies Gilbert, says: 'I cound not discern the faculties by which he was afterwards so much distingiuished.' Davy says himself: 'I consider it fortunate I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study … What I am I made myself.'
After the death of Davy's father in 1794, Tonkin apprenticed him to John Bingham Borlase, a surgeon in large practice at Penzance. His indenture is dated 10 Feb. 1795. In the apothecary's dispensary he became a chemist. A garret in Tonkin's house was the scene of his earliest chemical operations. His friends would often say: 'This boy Humphry is incorrigible. He will blow us all into the air,' and his eldest sister complained of the ravages made on her dresses by corrosive substances.
Much has been said of Davy as a poet, and Paris somewhat hastily says that his verses 'bear the stamp of lofty genius.' His first production preserved bears the date of 1795. It is entitled 'The Sons of Genius,' and is marked
