![Davy lamp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Davy_lamp.png)
The Davy lamp is a
safety lamp
A safety lamp is any of several types of lamp that provides illumination in coal mines and is designed to operate in air that may contain coal dust or gases, both of which are potentially flammable or explosive. Until the development of effectiv ...
for use in flammable atmospheres, invented in 1815 by Sir
Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, (17 December 177829 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for t ...
.
[Brief History of the Miner's Flame Safety Lamp](_blank)
at minerslamps.net. Accessed 7 July 20121 It consists of a
wick
Wick most often refers to:
* Capillary action ("wicking")
** Candle wick, the cord used in a candle or oil lamp
** Solder wick, a copper-braided wire used to desolder electronic contacts
Wick or WICK may also refer to:
Places and placenames ...
lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. It was created for use in
coal mine
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
s, to reduce the danger of explosions due to the presence of
methane
Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...
and other flammable gases, called ''
firedamp
Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane. It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous. The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and when they are penetrated the releas ...
'' or ''
minedamp.''
History
German polymath
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...
, working for the German Bureau of Mines, had concerns for the health and welfare of the miners and invented a kind of respirator and "four lamps of different construction suitable for employment in various circumstances. The respirator was to prevent the inhaling of injurious gases, and to supply the miner with good air; the lamps were constructed to burn in the most inflammable kind of
fire-damp
Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane. It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous. The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and when they are penetrated the release ...
without igniting the gas. They were the forerunners of Davy's later invention, and were frequently made use of by the miners."
Davy's invention was preceded by that of
William Reid Clanny
William Reid Clanny FRSE (1776 – 10 January 1850) was an Irish physician and inventor of a safety lamp.
Life
Clanny was born in Bangor, County Down, Kingdom of Ireland. He trained as a physician at Edinburgh, and served as an assistant surgeo ...
, an Irish doctor at
Bishopwearmouth
Bishopwearmouth is a former village and parish which now constitutes the west side of Sunderland City Centre, merging with the settlement as it expanded outwards in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is home to the Sunderland Minster church, which ...
, who had read a paper to the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
in May 1813. The more cumbersome Clanny safety lamp was successfully tested at Herrington Mill, and he won medals, from the
Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...
.
Despite his lack of scientific knowledge, engine-wright
George Stephenson
George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for ...
devised a lamp in which the air entered via tiny holes, through which the flames of the lamp could not pass. A month before Davy presented his design to the Royal Society, Stephenson demonstrated his own lamp to two witnesses by taking it down
Killingworth Colliery
Killingworth, formerly Killingworth Township, is a town in North Tyneside, England.
Killingworth was built as a planned town in the 1960s, next to Killingworth Village, which existed for centuries before the Township. Other nearby towns and ...
and holding it in front of a fissure from which
firedamp
Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane. It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous. The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and when they are penetrated the releas ...
was issuing.
The first trial of a Davy lamp with a wire sieve was at
Hebburn
Hebburn is a town in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It governed under the borough of South Tyneside; formerly governed under the county of Durham until 1974 with its own urban district from 1894 until 1974. It is on the south ...
Colliery on 9 January 1816.
A letter from Davy (which he intended to be kept private) describing his findings and various suggestions for a safety lamp was made public at a meeting in Newcastle on 3 November 1815,
and a paper describing the lamp was formally presented at a Royal Society meeting in London on 9 November.
For it, Davy was awarded the society's
Rumford Medal
The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by Britain's Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe".
First awar ...
. Davy's lamp differed from Stephenson's in that the flame was surrounded by a screen of gauze, whereas Stephenson's prototype lamp had a perforated plate contained in a glass cylinder (a design mentioned in Davy's Royal Society paper as an alternative to his preferred solution).
For his invention Davy was given £2,000 worth of silver (the money being raised by public subscription), whilst Stephenson was accused of stealing the idea from Davy, because the fully developed '
Geordie lamp
The Geordie lamp was a safety lamp for use in flammable atmospheres, invented by George Stephenson in 1815 as a miner's lamp to prevent explosions due to firedamp in coal mines.
Origin
In 1815, Stephenson was the engine-wright at the Killingw ...
' had not been demonstrated by Stephenson until after Davy had presented his paper at the Royal Society, and (it was held) previous versions had not actually been safe.
A local committee of enquiry gathered in support of Stephenson exonerated him, showing that he had been working separately to create the Geordie lamp,
and raised a subscription for him of £1,000.
Davy and his supporters refused to accept their findings, and would not see how an uneducated man such as Stephenson could come up with the solution he had: Stephenson himself freely admitted that he had arrived at a practical solution on the basis of an erroneous theory.
In 1833, a
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
committee found that Stephenson had equal claim to having invented the safety lamp.
Davy went to his grave claiming that Stephenson had stolen his idea. The Stephenson lamp was used almost exclusively in
North East England
North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the region; combined authority, unitary authorit ...
, whereas the Davy lamp was used everywhere else. The experience gave Stephenson a lifelong distrust of London-based, theoretical, scientific experts.
Design and theory
![Pieler safety lamp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Pieler_safety_lamp.jpg)
The lamp consists of a
wick
Wick most often refers to:
* Capillary action ("wicking")
** Candle wick, the cord used in a candle or oil lamp
** Solder wick, a copper-braided wire used to desolder electronic contacts
Wick or WICK may also refer to:
Places and placenames ...
lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. The screen acts as a
flame arrestor
A flame arrester (also spelled arrestor), deflagration arrester,
or flame trap
are safety devices fitted to openings of enclosures or to pipe work, and are intended to allow flow but prevent flame transmission fuel combustion by extinguishing th ...
; air (and any firedamp present) can pass through the mesh freely enough to support combustion, but the holes are too fine to allow a flame to propagate through them and ignite any firedamp outside the mesh. It originally burned a heavy vegetable oil.
The lamp also provided a test for the presence of gases. If flammable gas mixtures were present, the flame of the Davy lamp burned higher with a blue tinge. Lamps were equipped with a metal gauge to measure the height of the flame. Miners could place the safety lamp close to the ground to detect gases, such as
carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...
, that are denser than air and so could collect in depressions in the mine; if the mine air was oxygen-poor (
asphyxiant gas
An asphyxiant gas, also known as a simple asphyxiant, is a nontoxic or minimally toxic gas which reduces or displaces the normal oxygen concentration in breathing air. Breathing of oxygen-depleted air can lead to death by asphyxiation (suffocation) ...
), the lamp flame would be extinguished (''
black damp
Blackdamp (also known as stythe or choke damp) is an asphyxiant, reducing the available oxygen content of air to a level incapable of sustaining human or animal life. It is not a single gas but a mixture of unbreathable gases left after oxygen is ...
'' or ''chokedamp''). A methane-air flame is extinguished at about 17% oxygen content (which will still support life), so the lamp gave an early indication of an unhealthy atmosphere, allowing the miners to get out before they died of asphyxiation.
Impact
In 1816, the
Cumberland Pacquet
Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 1974 ...
reported a demonstration of the Davy lamp at William Pit, Whitehaven. Placed in a blower "... the effect was grand beyond description. At first a blue flame was seen to cap the flame of the lamp, – then succeeded a lambent flame, playing in the cylinder; and shortly after, the flame of the firedamp expanded, so as to completely fill the wire gauze. For some time, the flame of the lamp was seen through that of the firedamp, which became ultimately extinguished without explosion. Results more satisfactory were not to be wished..."
Another correspondent to the paper commented "The Lamp offers absolute security to the miner... With the excellent ventilation of the ''Whitehaven Collieries'' and the application of Sir HUMPHRY's valuable instrument, the accidents from the explosion of' (carburetted) 'hydrogene which have occurred (although comparatively few for such extensive works) will by this happy invention be avoided".
However, this prediction was not fulfilled: in the next thirty years, firedamp explosions in Whitehaven pits killed 137 people.
[Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society: Extra Series XXIV: ] More generally, the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines reported in 1835 that the introduction of the Davy lamp had led to an increase in mine accidents;
the lamp encouraged the working of mines and parts of mines that had previously been closed for safety reasons.
For example, in 1835, 102 men and boys were killed by a firedamp explosion in a Wallsend colliery working the Bensham seam, described at the subsequent inquest by
John Buddle
John Buddle (15 September 1773 – 10 October 1843) was a prominent self-made mining engineer and entrepreneur in North East England. He had a major influence on the development of the Northern Coalfield in the first half of the 19th century, co ...
as "a dangerous seam, which required the utmost care in keeping in a working state", which could only be worked with the Davy lamp. The coroner noted that a previous firedamp explosion in 1821 had killed 52, but directed his jury that any finding on the wisdom of continuing to work the seam was outside their province.
[ (Sykes was the publisher of the ]Newcastle Courant Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
)
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 (1838–39) 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 the first accident, and on the "further absurdity" of "carrying a Davy lamp in one hand for the sake of safety, and a naked lighted candle in the other, as if for the sake of danger. Beyond this there can be no conceivable thoughtlessness and folly; and when such management is allowed in the mine of two of the most opulent coal-proprietors in the kingdom, we cease to wonder at anything that may take place in mines worked by men equally without capital and science"
Another reason for the increase in accidents was the unreliability of the lamps themselves. The bare gauze was easily damaged, and once just a single wire broke or rusted away, the lamp became unsafe.
Work carried out by a scientific witness and reported by the committee showed that the Davy lamp became unsafe in airflows so low that a Davy lamp carried at normal walking pace against normal airflows in walkways was only safe if provided with a draught shield
(not normally fitted), and the committee noted that accidents had happened when the lamp was "in general and careful use; no one survived to tell the tale of how these occurrences took place; conjecture supplied the want of positive knowledge most unsatisfactorily; but incidents are recorded which prove what must follow unreasonable testing of the lamp; and your Committee are constrained to believe that ignorance and a false reliance upon its merits, in cases attended with unwarrantable risks, have led to disastrous consequences"
The "South Shields Committee", a body set up by a public meeting there (in response to an explosion at the St Hilda pit in 1839) to consider the prevention of accidents in mines had shown that mine ventilation in the North-East was generally deficient, with an insufficient supply of fresh air giving every opportunity for explosive mixtures of gas to accumulate.
A subsequent select committee in 1852 concurred with this view; firedamp explosions could best be prevented by improving mine ventilation (by the use of steam ejectors: the committee specifically advised against fan ventilation), which had been neglected because of over-reliance on the safety of the Davy lamp.
The practice of using a Davy lamp and a candle together was not entirely absurd, however, if the Davy lamp is understood to be not only a safe light in an explosive atmosphere, but also a gauge of firedamp levels. In practice, however, the warning from the lamp was not always noticed in time, especially in the working conditions of the era.
The ''Regulation and Inspection of Mines Act'' of 1860 therefore required coal mines to have an adequate amount of ventilation, constantly produced, to dilute and render harmless noxious gases so that work areas were – under ordinary circumstances – in a fit state to be worked (areas where a normally safe atmosphere could not be ensured were to be fenced off "as far as possible"): it also required safety lamps to be examined and securely locked by a duly authorised person before use.
Even when new and clean, illumination from the safety lamps was very poor, and the problem was not fully resolved until electric lamps became widely available in the late 19th century.
Successors
A modern-day equivalent of the Davy lamp has been used in the
Olympic flame
The Olympic flame is a symbol used in the Olympic movement. It is also a symbol of continuity between ancient and modern games. Several months before the Olympic Games, the Olympic flame is lit at Olympia, Greece. This ceremony starts the Olympic ...
torch relays. It was used in the relays for the Sydney, Athens, Turin, Beijing, Vancouver and Singapore Youth
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
. It was also used for the Special Olympics Shanghai, Pan American and Central African games and for the
London 2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
relay.
Lamps are still made in
Eccles, Greater Manchester
Eccles () is a town in the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England,
west of Salford and west of Manchester, split by the M602 motorway and bordered by the Manchester Ship Canal to the south. The town is famous for the Eccles cake.
...
;
in
Aberdare
Aberdare ( ; cy, Aberdâr) is a town in the Cynon Valley area of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, at the confluence of the Rivers Dare (Dâr) and Cynon. Aberdare has a population of 39,550 (mid-2017 estimate). Aberdare is south-west of Merthyr Tyd ...
,
South Wales
South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...
;
and in
Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
.
A replica of a Davy lamp is located in front of the ticket office at the
Stadium of Light
The Stadium of Light is an all-seater football stadium in Sunderland, England, and the eighth and current home to Sunderland A.F.C. With space for 49,000 spectators, the Stadium of Light is the ninth largest football stadium in England. ...
(Sunderland AFC) which is built on a former coal mine.
In 2015,
Bersham Colliery
Bersham Colliery was a large coal mine located near Rhostyllen in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. The mine accessed seams found in the Denbighshire Coalfield.
History
The Wrexham area in the 19th Century was highly industrialised. At the peak t ...
in
Wrexham
Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...
, Wales, which is now a mining museum, invited visitors to bring their Davy Lamps and other industrial heirlooms to the museum for identification. The
National Mining Museum Scotland
The National Mining Museum Scotland was created in 1984, to preserve the physical surface remains of Lady Victoria Colliery at Newtongrange, Midlothian, Scotland. The colliery, sunk by the Lothian Coal Company in 1890, came into production in 1 ...
at
Newtongrange
Newtongrange () is a former mining village in Midlothian, Scotland. Known in local dialect as ''Nitten'', or ''Nitten by the Bing'' (),
it became Scotland's largest mining village in the 1890s, with the sinking of the Lady Victoria Colliery a ...
, Scotland, also celebrated the 200th anniversary of the invention. In 2016, the
Royal Institution of Great Britain
The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...
, where the Davy lamp prototype is displayed, decided to have the invention 3D scanned,
reverse engineered
Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...
and presented to the museum visitors in a more accessible digital format via a virtual reality cabinet. At first sight it appears to be a traditional display cabinet but has a touch screen with various options for visitors to view and reference the virtual exhibits inside.
Notes
References
Further reading
*
External links
Popular Science videoshowing an experiment that demonstrates the principle of the Davy lamp
* Edwards, Eri
at
Pitt Rivers Museum
Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed t ...
,
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
Humphry DavyBrief bio at Spartacus Educational
* {{cite web, last=Martyn Poliakoff, first=Martyn Poliakoff, title=Davy's Lamp, url=http://www.periodicvideos.com/videos/feature_davy_lamp.htm, work=
The Periodic Table of Videos
''Periodic Videos'' (also known as ''The Periodic Table of Videos'') is a video project and YouTube channel on chemistry. It consists of a series of videos about chemical elements and the periodic table, with additional videos on other topics i ...
, publisher=
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...
, author-link=Martyn Poliakoff
English inventions
History of mining
Oil lamp
Mine safety
Mining equipment
1815 introductions
Davy family
19th-century inventions
de:Grubenlampe#Sicherheitsgrubenlampen