Safety lamp it. Air is drawn in and descends just inside the glass, passing up through the flame in the centre of the lamp. The outer casings of lamps have been made of brass or tinned steel. If a lamp bangs against a hard piece of rock a spark could be generated if iron or untinned steel were employed. Within months of Clanny's demonstration of his first lamp, two improved designs had been announced: one by George Stephenson, which later became the Geordie lamp, and the Davy lamp, invented by Sir Humphry Davy. Subsequently, Clanny incorporated aspects of both lamps and produced
Davy lamp was outside their province. The lamps had to be provided by the miners themselves, not the owners, as traditionally the miners had bought their own candles from the company store. Miners still preferred the better illumination from a naked light, and mine regulations insisting that only safety lamps be used were draconian in principle, but in practice neither observed nor enforced. After two accidents in two years (1838-9) in Cumberland pits, both caused by safety checks being carried out by the light of a naked flame, the Royal Commission on Children's Employment commented both on the failure to learn from