Title
Papers of Edward Davy
Reference
UK0108 SC MSS 015
Date
1836-1847
Creator
Scope and Content
These papers show Davy's first ideas for an electric telegraph from his early sketches in 1836 of a frictional electric telegraph to one worked by electromagentism which he developed 1836-1839. His first patent was lodged in 1837 in opposition to Cooke and Wheatstone's first patent. The papers indicate his efforts to find a purchaser for the patent rights and to establish a company to develop the telegraph. He made agreements with several business men but none of these arrangements bore any fruit. He also negotiated with the railway companies and demonstrated the telegraph for them. The papers record the efforts of his father, Thomas Davy, and several others, to continue Davy's negotiations with the railway companies and the arrangements which were made to re-exhibit a working model of the telegraph. The papers also relate to the sale of the patent to the Electric Telegraph Company in 1847. Fahie's memoir on Davy is included in the papers.
Exent
69 items
Language
English.
Admin. history/Biography
Edward Davy was born in 1806, the son of Thomas Davy of Ottery St Mary, Devon, a doctor. Edward trained as a doctor, but soon extended his interest to Chemistry. He purchased a chemist's shop on the Strand and began work which resulted in several inventions. The first was Davy's Diamond Cement, a glue for repairing china which was to prove a steady source of income to him. However, his main work was on an electric telegraph, which he had begun work on in 1836 and had in operation by 1837, so that he could lay a cable round Regent's Park to demonstrate his system to Directors of Railway Companies, including Brunel. He also exhibited his machine in a room in Exeter Hall, before he had a patent for it. When Cooke and Wheatstone took out their patent in 1837 Davy opposed it and submitted his own Patent. The Solicitor General agreed that his invention was distinct and different but only after adjudication by Michael Faraday. Davy's patent was granted in 1838.
Davy had married and had a child, but the marriage was a disaster and Davy tried to remove the child from his mother. She took action against him through the ecclesiastical courts. Faced with financial difficulties and the impossibility of reaching a settlement with his wife, Davy resolved to leave the country and sailed for Australia in April 1839, just as his telegraph was on the point of being accepted by various railway companies. Davy thought that the negotiations could be handled by an agent but this proved very difficult. Various people, including Alfred Bunn, tried to help selling Davy's telegraph ideas, but they had problems demonstrating the machinery. His family were nervous of drawing attention to his name given the continuing legal problems with his wife, and so they did not do all that might have been done to push forwards Davy's invention and soon his system was abandoned in favour of Cooke and Wheatstone's system. His patent was eventually sold to the Electric Telegraph Company for £600.
Davy had a long and eventful life in Australia, first brewing gin in Adelaide, then working as Assay Master in Adelaide and then Melbourne, before eventually settling in Malmesbury, Victoria, where he tried farming without much success and also worked as a doctor. He was a JP and on the town council. He married four times in all, and had two children by his fourth marriage, the last, a son, being born only a few months before he died. After Fahie rescued his name from obscurity he was honoured for his role in the development of the electric telegraph by the Royal Society of Victoria, by the town of Malmesbury and he was elected an Honorary Member of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians (IEE). However, efforts to obtain a Civil List pension for him were in vain. He died on 26 January 1885 aged 79.
Persons keyword
Subject
Conditions governing access
Open access
Level of description
sub-fonds
