Humphry Davy Davy's laboratory assistant, Michael Faraday, went on to enhance Davy's work and would become the more famous and influential scientist. Davy is supposed to have even claimed Faraday as his greatest discovery. Davy later accused Faraday of plagiarism, however, causing Faraday (the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry) to cease all research in electromagnetism until his mentor's death. Of a sanguine, somewhat irritable temperament, Davy displayed characteristic enthusiasm and energy in all his pursuits. As is shown by his verses and sometimes by his prose, his mind was highly imaginative; the poet Coleridge declared that if he "had not been the
Royal Institution Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often abbreviated as the Royal Institution or Ri) is an organisation devoted to scientific education and research, based in London. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age including Henry Cavendish and its first president, George Finch, the 9th Earl of Winchilsea, for diffusing the knowledge, and facilitating the general introduction, of useful mechanical inventions and improvements; and for teaching, by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common purposes of life. Much of the Institution's initial funding and the initial proposal