Edmund Davy Edmund Davy Edmund Davy FRS (1785 – 5 November 1857) was a professor of Chemistry at the Royal Cork Institution from 1813 and professor of chemistry at the Royal Dublin Society from 1826. He discovered acetylene, as it was later named by Marcellin Berthelot. He was also an original member of the Chemical Society, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Edmund Davy was a cousin of Humphry Davy, the famous chemist who invented the Davy lamp for the safety of miners. Edmund, the son of William Davy, was born in Penzance, Cornwall, and lived there throughout his teen
Safety lamp of the safety lamp. The miner was expected to return to the shaft to perform relighting, a round trip of up to a few miles. For men on piece work, this meant a loss of income (perhaps 10% of their day's pay) and so was unpopular. From the mid-century onwards, and particularly after the 1872 act, lamps had to have a lock mechanism which prevented the miner opening the lamp. Two schemes existed; either a special tool was required which kept at the pit head or else opening the lamp extinguished the flame. The latter mechanism can be seen in