Edward Davy

Edward Davy (June 16, 1806 - January 26, 1885), was an English physician, scientist and inventor.

To quote from Matthew & Harrison's Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) (2004 Edition) volume 15, pages 504-505 ...

"Davy, Edward (1806-1885), chemist and promoter of the telegraph, was born on 16 June 1806 at Ottery St Mary, Devon, the eldest son of Thomas Davy, a surgeon, and his wife, Elizabeth Boutflower. He was educated at the Revd Richard Houlditch's school at Ottery St Mary and at the school of his maternal uncle in Tower Street, London. ... His interests lay in the general sciences, particularly chemistry and electricity, and a catalogue of instruments, appended to his Experimental Guide to Chemistry, published in 1836, includes several devices invented by him in the list of goods and instruments for sale. In 1836 he patented Davy's diamond cement, an adhesive for mending china and glass, from which he gained a small annual income until he sold the rights to the process."

"Also in 1836, Davy published Outline of a New Plan of Telegraphic Communication, and in 1837 he carried out telegraphic experiments in Regent's Park. ... He demonstrated a working model of his telegraph that year and a needle telegraph in the Exeter Hall in central London for several months in 1838. He applied for a patent for his telegraph, which was granted on 4 July 1838 after the solicitor-general asked Michael Faraday's advice as to whether it constituted a different mechanism from that of (Sir William Fothergill) Cooke and (Sir Charles) Wheatstone, patented on 12 June 1837. Davy managed to interest two railway companies, the Birmingham Railway and the Southhampton Railway, in his telegraph, but left England for Australia before developing a practical system for completing negotiations, which he left in the hands of his father and a friend, Thomas Watson, a London dentist. Eventually his patent was bought by the Electric Telegraph Company in 1847 for £600. Although his telegraph was never developed, Davy was important for popularizing to the general public the concept of telegraphy, and was the first to develope a relay system ['an auxiliary device by which a current too feeble to indicate the signals could call into play a local battery strong enough to make them' (quoted from Munro's Heroes of the Telegraph)]."

But Davy was clearly the originating inventor of the Telegraph despite his several difficulties with pursuit of his projects to their final "approvable" conclusions; and not Morse, who wasn't even originally granted a patent for his version until 1840 – conveniently, one year after Davy had abandoned his pursuits entirely in this area.

Confer the O'Reilly v. Morse, et al link below and any copy that you can get from a law library, because the article has been redacted.

It clearly states that Morse's first patent of 1840 was annulled ("for which letters-patent were granted on the 20th June, 1840, which letters-patent were surrendered and rescinded on the 15th day of January, 1846, which last letters-patent are hereby cancelled on account of a defective specification"), but re-granted in 1849; and the "evidence" that was presented at the trial, actually accepted the "fact" that Morse had these ideas in his "mind" as early as 1832 (and of course, two years after "the researches of Professor Joseph Henry on the electro-magnet, in 1830," [see: Heroes of The Telegraph Chap III, infra]).

To quote from O'Reilly v. Morse, et al (1853) 56 U.S. 62, 15 How 62, 14 LEd 601: "[W]hen he [Morse] was returning from a visit to Europe, in 1832, he was deeply engaged upon this subject [of inventing the telegraph] during the voyage; and that the process and means were so far developed and arranged in his own mind ..." (Emphasis added)

On page 68 of the same above O'Reilly v. Morse, et al (from an unedited, law library edition), under the subtitle "History of the Invention"; it recounts the following quote of trial witness, the Hon. William C. Rives, Minister of the United States to the Court of France, concerning the statement that Morse made on the same above-stated 1832 voyage, in a letter that Rives wrote to Morse on September 27, 1837 ...

"I remember perfectly, that you explained to me the idea of your ingenious instrument during the voyage which we made together in the autumn of 1832. I also remember that during your many conversations on this subject, I suggested several difficulties to you, and that you obviated them with promtness and confidence."

But compare the quote below; the two dates do not jibe – 1832, when Morse was "fully aware of electromagnatism" and 1837, when he "was not aware that anyone had even conceived the notion of using the magnet for such a purpose" ...

And in Heroes of The Telegraph Chap III: "According to his [Morse's] own statement, he devised the relay in 1836 or earlier; but it was not until the beginning of 1837 that he explained the device, and showed the working of his apparatus to his friend, Mr. Leonard D. Gale, Professor of Chemistry in the University [of the City of New York] ... [Morse], indeed, was very ignorant of what had been done by other electricians; and Professor Gale was able to enlighten him. When Gale acquainted him with some results in telegraphing obtained by Mr. Barlow, he said he [Morse] was not aware that anyone had even conceived the notion of using the magnet for such a purpose."

Contents

1 In fact 2 Conclusion 3 Sources 4 External links

In fact

Davy had actually sued Wheatstone and Cooke in May of 1837 in an attempt to stop the granting of a patent to them as above-mentioned, since it was he who actually made the first demonstrations at Regent's Park, etc. (Confer: * Stephen & Lee's edition of the DNB, vol. 5, p. 636, cited infra).

To further quote from Munro's Heroes of the Telegraph Chapter 1 ...

"From 1837-8, Edward Davy, a Devonshire surgeon, exhibited a needle telegraph in London, and proposed one based on the discovery of Arago (Argon?), that a piece of soft iron is temporarily magnetised by the passage of an electric current through a coil surrounding it. This principle was further applied by Morse in his electro-magnetic printing telegraph."

APPLIED by Morse, not invented, experimented with, postulated, etc.; Morse was simply "in the right place, at the right time" when Davy disheartened, but in an interesting "twist" on the saying "the poetry of justice," Davy ended up being elected the Mayor of the town of Malmesbury, Victoria, Australia three times, whereas Morse wasn't even elected one time the Mayor of the town for which he chose to run: the City of New York.

Back to the main ODNB quote ...

"[Such that John Joseph] Fahie, a historian of the telegraph, initiated a campaign to have Davy's contribution recognized, and in November of 1884 the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians (later the Institution of Electrical Engineers) made him an honorary member."

"While in London, Davy married Mary Minshull [* Stephen & Lee's 1921-22 edition of the ODNB – known as the Dictionary of National Biography, or DNB – however, states on page 636 of vol. 5 that he married a Mary Ann Bryant]; they had one son, George Boutflower Davy, who was born before 1837. By 1838 their marriage had irretrievably broken down, and Mary Davy tried unsuccessfully to divorce her husband. Her extravagance and Davy's lack of business sense led to mounting debts, which he settled with help from his father. To free himself from his wife Davy decided to emigrate. He left his son in the care of his family, and in April 1839 set sail for Australia intending to take up a small-holding. He soon abandoned farming to settle in Adelaide, South Australia, where he engaged in various pursuits. He edited the Adelaide Examiner from 1843 to 1845, built up a small medical practice, and for a time managed the Yalta copper-smelting works, where he developed a process for copper refining. He patented the process ... and an English patent was granted ... In 1852 he was appointed head of the government assay office in Adelaide which he ran very successfully. ... [Later] Davy again took up farming near Malmsbury, Victoria, but soon settled in the town itself, where he engaged in local politics, serving for twenty years as a justice of the peace and for three terms as mayor. He developed his medical practice, and acted for twenty years as the first honorary health officer of the borough. ..."

"Davy married twice while in Australia [The 1921-22 DNB says he was married but twice all together]; it is not clear whether his first marriage had ended (by divorce or his wife's death) or whether these marriages were bigamous. By 1845 he had married Rebecca Soper, with whom he had five sons and two daughters. After her death in 1877 he married Arabella Cecil, the daughter of Stephen Tunbridge Hardinge, postmaster-general of Tasmania. They had four children, two of whom, a son and a daughter, survived him. Davy died on 26 January 1885, at Mollison Street East, Malmsbury ..."

Conclusion

Davy was victim of both circumstance as well as that of "common conspiracy"; and despite what efforts were made to give him credit, since the court system itself seems to have been divided against him, this was a goal that could never be attained.

To lastly quote from the same above-said O'Reilly v. Morse, et al (1853) 56 U.S. 62, 108, Judge Taney makes the following baby blunder ...

"The remaining European patent is that of Edward Davy. His patent, it appears, was sealed on the 4th of July, 1838, but his specification was not filed until January 4, 1839; and when these two English patents [Davy's along with Wheatstone & Cooke's] are brought into competition with that of Morse, they must take date from the time of filing their respective specifications. For it must be borne in mind that, as the law then stood in England, the inventor was allowed six months to file the description of his invention after his patent was sealed; while, in this country, the filing of the specification is simultaneous with the application for patents."

How is it, Judge Taney, that you can just say date must be taken from the time of filing?

Were you not just attemping to make Morse's August 1838 French patent appear to have been the earlier patent, when all the while it was simply obvious that Morse took out his August 1838 patent in reaction to Davy's July 4, 1838 patent?

But on that note, even if you were correct about the filing of the separate descriptions, American Law is also quite clear about a situtation known as ex post facto law, or things done after the fact.

You cannot, as American Law says, come along afterwards and make or enforce a law just to suit an individual purpose; but that is what you are doing here!

Davy already had a description prepared WELL in advance as is witnessed in his many publications going all the way back to 1836 in his Outline of a New Plan of Telegraphic Communication, its just that SINCE the English Law didn't require a simultaneous filing, he just didn't do so – not that he couldn't have.

It is ex post facto, sir, for the United States or any other country to expect an individual to anticipate all happenings as they are going on prior to their occurrence.

That, according to American Law, does not give any sort of a "fair warning" to what is expected and is in direct violation of America's hard fought for Constitution.

But further, Taney makes another blunder on page 109 when he trys to make an argument defending the "firstness" and earlier filing of Morse's April 7th, 1838 Specification ...

"[But] we are satisfied, from the testimony, that the plan [or description of the invention and how it operated], as it now appears in his specification, had then been invented, and was actually intended to be described." (Emphasis added)

If Davy would have known this, certainly he would have worked the invention first and then gave his description years and years later; but unfortunately for Morse et al, that would have meant that Davy's invention actually occurred sometime in 1836.

The judge seemed to feel that Morse's contemplations, and the third-party hearsay evidence that he presented, were presumed to contain no errors and based upon complete and utter fact; whereas Davy's contemplations prior to his 1836 publication weren't even brought up, despite the fact that Morse was educated as an Artist and was paid and practising as a professor in his chosen field at the time Davy had devoted himself completely to his experiments surrounding the "New Plan of Telegraphic Communication."

But the reader must keep in mind that America at this time was really "feeling its oats," and it wouldn't have mattered if Davy or anyone else was in the right – Morse was first, and we'll "beat your ass" if you don't like it.

But just to set the record straight ...

Sources

The above article includes several sources including ...

J.J.Fahie, "Honour to whom honour is due: Edward Davy and the electric telegraph, 1836-1839" The Electrician, 11 (1883)

External links

• Very short biography (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0771878.html)
• Short biography with 2 good links (http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/biogs/P003033b.htm)
• Copyrighted photograph from the State Library of South Australia (http://143.216.21.253/mpcimg/11090/B10846.htm)
• United States Court Case - O'Reilly v. Morse, et al (1853) 56 U.S. 62 (http://www.law.pitt.edu/madison/patent/supplement/oreilly_v_morse.html) - discrediting Edward Davy and others as the original inventors of the telegraph (about 17 pages in 10pt type - ALERT: horribly redacted without any mention as to what portions were cut out, which included witness testimonies [cf. supra])
• Dictionary of Australian Biography (http://www.gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/00-dict-biogIndex.html) HINT: click the “D” letter, then do an “Edit, Find” for “Davy”.
• Heroes of The Telegraph (http://arthurwendover.com/arthurs/munro/htgrf10.html) by J. Munro