William Reid Clanny

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(1776 – 10 January 1850) was an Irish physician and inventor of 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 ...

Life

Clanny was born in Bangor,

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

Kingdom of Ireland The Kingdom of Ireland ( ga, label=Classical Irish, an Ríoghacht Éireann; ga, label=Modern Irish, an Ríocht Éireann, ) was a monarchy on the island of Ireland that was a client state of England and then of Great Britain. It existed from ...

. He trained as a physician at

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, and served as an assistant surgeon in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. He was present at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. He left the Navy and graduated in 1803 before settling for a while in

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...

. He moved to

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 ...

, near

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

, England and practised there for 45 years. While in Durham, on 4th February, 1806, he was initiated into

Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

at the Marquis of Granby Lodge. Then after moving to Sunderland, he joined The Sea Captain's Lodge, later to be renamed Palatine Lodge No 97. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

in 1825, his proposers being Sir George Ballingall,

Robert Kaye Greville Dr. Robert Kaye Greville FRSE FLS LLD (13 December 1794 – 4 June 1866) was an England, English mycologist, bryology, bryologist, and botanist. He was an accomplished artist and illustrator of natural history. In addition to art and scien ...

, and Sir

William Newbigging Sir William Newbigging FRSE FRCSEd FRGS (25 April 1773''Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950'' – 23 October 1852) was a Scottish surgeon who served as President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1814 to 1816. He ...

. Clanny died on 10 January 1850 and was buried at Galleys Gill Cemetery in Sunderland. The entry in the

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

states "his claim to remembrance rests on his efforts to diminish the loss of life from explosions in collieries.

Safety lamps

In 1812 the

Felling mine disaster The Felling Colliery (also known as Brandling Main) in Britain, suffered four disasters in the 19th century, in 1812, 1813, 1821 and 1847. By far the worst of the four was the 1812 disaster which claimed 91 lives on 25 May 1812. The loss of life ...

and later in the year the explosion at Mill Pit in

Herrington Herrington is an area in the south of Sunderland, lying within historic County Durham in North East England. ''The Herringtons'' are split into ''East & Middle'' and ''West'' and ''New'' villages. East and Middle Herrington is now a largely re ...

near Sunderland concentrated minds on the problems of underground lighting. In the same year Clanny completed his first lamp consisting of a candle in a glass surround. Below the glass was a trough containing water through which air was forced by a pair of bellows. Fumes bubbled out through another water chamber above. A paper 'On the Means of procuring a Steady Light in Coal Mines without the Danger of Explosion' was read before 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 ...

on 20 May the following year. Early machines were quite cumbersome. But Clanny later succeeded in reducing the weight of the lamp to 34 ounces (964 grams). By 1816, when Clanny published ''Practical observations on

s for coal mines'', he had experimented in person with a safety lamp at the Mill Pit in

near Sunderland, where there had been a serious explosive accident, with the loss of 24 lives, on 10 October 1812. Clanny won medals in 1816–17 for his invention 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 ...

. His lamp and other improvements were, after some initial disputes, recognised for their true worth by his contemporaries, including northern coal owners who presented him with a purse of gold. with a silver salver at the Athenæum, Sunderland, on 3 February 1848.

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 ...

acknowledged a debt to Clanny's researches and

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 ...

invented his version of a lamp very soon after a visit to Sunderland in August 1815.

References

Footnotes Citations Bibliography * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clanny, William Reid 1776 births 1850 deaths People from Bangor, County Down British inventors Irish military doctors Mine safety Irish general practitioners