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 However, by 1910 there were only 2055 electric lamps of all types in use - about 0.25% of all safety lamps. In 1911, an anonymous colliery owner, through the British government, offered a prize of £1000 () for the best lamp to specified requirements. There were 195 entries. It was won by a German engineer with the CEAG lamp, which was hand-held and delivered twice the illumination of oil lamps, with a battery life of 16 hours. Awards were made to 8 other lamps that met the judges' criteria. Clearly this stimulated development and over the next few years there