Who invented the Davy lamp?

Who invented the Davy lamp? Sir Humphry Davy invented it in 1815.

The lamp was designed to make coal mining safer, where methane—then called firedamp—could ignite when exposed to an open flame. Davy enclosed the flame in a fine iron-wire gauze. The mesh allowed air to reach the flame but stopped the flame from passing outward and igniting methane in the mine.

The lamp also served as an early gas detector. A taller, bluish flame could indicate methane, while a weakening or extinguished flame could warn of oxygen-poor air. These features made it both a light source and a basic atmospheric warning instrument.

Davy was not the only person developing a miners’ safety lamp. William Reid Clanny had demonstrated an earlier design, and George Stephenson independently developed another lamp. Their competing claims caused controversy, but the lamp specifically known as the Davy lamp is canonically attributed to Humphry Davy. He refused to patent it and received the Royal Society’s Rumford Medal in 1816.