Deceased Members — Mr. Davies Gilbert. 531 



Council ; and though he communicated no papers, he took a lively 

 interest in all our proceedings, and was ever prompt on all public 

 occasions to promote the welfare and forward the great objects of 

 our institution. 



His paternal name was Giddy : he was descended in the line of 

 both his parents from very respectable families in Cornwall, and on 

 the maternal side of Davies, allied to the noble family of Sandys; in 

 1817 he assumed the name of Gilbert, on succeeding to the property 

 of his wife's uncle, Mr. Charles Gilbert, of East Bourne, in Sussex. 



Having been privately educated in Cornwall, he became, in 

 1785, at the age of eighteen, a gentleman-commoner of Pembroke 

 College, Oxford, where, being of more studious habits and more ma- 

 ture attainments than is usual with students of his age, he associated 

 chiefly with the senior members of his College. Dr. Parr, writing at 

 this time to the late master of Pembroke, speaks of Mr. Giddy, then 

 twenty-three years old, as " the Cornish philosopher," and adds, that 

 " he deserves that name." 



To this College, as well as to the University, his affectionate 

 and devoted attachment endured to his latest hour, and he became 

 on several occasions a liberal benefactor towards improvements in 

 Pembroke and its vicinity. During many years it was his great 

 delight to pass a few days at Oxford, and he always considered the 

 diploma Degree of Doctor of Laws, conferred on him by the Uni- 

 versity in 1832, as one of the most gratifying events of his life. 



During his early residence his taste for chemistry and other 

 branches of physical science had introduced him to the acquaint- 

 ance of Dr. Beddoes, at that time a resident Member of Pembroke 

 College, and who subsequently dedicated to him his pamphlet on 

 mathematical evidence. This acquaintance* was the remote cause 

 of the first step in the public life of Sir Humphry Davy ; when Mr. 

 Giddy, who had discovered young Davy's genius for chemistry whilst 

 yet a boy at Penzance, introduced him to Dr. Beddoes, to assist in his 

 laboratory at Bristol, little dreaming that he should himself one day 

 become the successor of this boy in the chair of the Royal Society. 



Mr. Davies Giddy was elected a fellow of the Royal Society 

 in 1791, and subsequently of the Antiquarian, Linnean, Geological, 

 and Astronomical Societies of London. He was also an honorary 

 member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Irish Aca- 

 demy, and of the New University of Durham. In 1814 he was 

 elected first President of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, 

 and afterwards Vice-Patron of the Cornwall Royal Polytechnic So- 

 ciety, in both which offices he continued till the day of his death. 

 He held the distinguished office of President of the Royal Society, 

 during three years, from 1 827 to 1 830, and contributed several im- 

 portant papers to their Transactions ; one upon the Mathematical 



* [He also enjoyed the friendship of Dr. Priestley : and he was on his way 

 to Birmingham on a visit to him, when, at a short distance from the town, 

 he learnt that the residence of his venerable friend was in flames, and that 

 a bigoted mob were in the act of destroying the library, manuscripts, and 

 laboratory of that excellent man and distinguished philosopher. — Ed.] 



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