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 electric lights. Miners have traditionally referred to the various gases encountered during mining as damps, from the Middle Low German word "dampf" (meaning "vapour"). Damps are variable mixtures and are historic terms. Before the invention of safety lamps, miners used candles with open flames. This gave rise to frequent explosions. For example, at one colliery (Killingworth) in the north east of England, 10 miners were killed in 1806, 12 in 1809. In 1812, 90 men and boys were suffocated or burnt to death in the Felling Pit near Gateshead and 22 in the following year. When they came into regular