Where’s Humphry’s medal? - March 17, 2008
A mystery involving Napoleon, Humphry Davy, warring countries and an apparently angry spouse is nearing resolution.
Last week the Royal Society of Chemistry revealed a letter detailing the trouble Davy had getting to Paris to collect a medal from Napoleon at a time when France was fighting a protracted war with Britain. The letter, from a French navy officer to the general secretary of the Institut de France, explained that the British blockade of French ports made it impossible to tell Davy he had been awarded the medal to “promote and share scientific knowledge” (RSC press release).
Davy did eventually travel to France and claim his medal and the RSC wanted to know where it was. After asking the public this question a relative of Davy came forward to say Davy’s wife had thrown it into the sea after his death.
Margaret Tottle-Smith, Davy’s fourth great niece told the BBC Jane Davy threw it into Mounts Bay in Cornwall after his death.
It's a very sad story. Humphry married a young widow. She was a socialite - she loved parties, she loved balls and when he died suddenly and the money was cut off, Jane was a widow again with no children. She had had a very bad experience going to collect that medal. It was a shocking memory for her.
RSC spokesman Brian Emsley says the society will hire divers to search for the medal, and in the process produces the understatement of the year: “It is really a long shot, but it is worth a try.”
A long shot? There are entire ships missing off the Cornish coast and you’re sending divers to look for a medal that may have been thrown there 200 years ago?
In a 2005 paper, historian of science Maurice Crosland, noted:
Even in periods of war there was the continuing ideal that science is a supranational endeavour. Political boundaries are irrelevant in the pursuit of knowledge of the natural world, which not only satisfies curiosity but is also, it is hoped, for the ultimate benefit of humanity.
Crosland’s paper contains an even better tale than Davy’s trip to France: that of French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil’s trip to watch the 1961 1761 transit of Venus from Pondicherry in India, which was passed between Britain and France.
... when Le Gentil arrived, he had the full cooperation of the British governor. Unfortunately he had arrived too late for the crucial observations. He decided that it was not worth undertaking the long sea journey back to France, because if he stayed he would be in an ideal position to make observations during the next transit of Venus in 1769, the last for another century.One can imagine the frustration of such a dedicated astronomer when, on the crucial day, the sky was obscured by clouds. He therefore returned to France, where the poor man found that he had been given up for dead and his property divided up between his heirs.
Image: the letter / RSC
Comments
I believe the date is 1761, not 1961. Feel free to delete my comment after correcting the date :-)
Posted by: Felix Finch | March 18, 2008 07:07 AM