Early  Life  at  Penzance. 
3 
The  position  of  protagonist,  however,  is  one  that  exists  for  all 
time,  for  the  first  discoverer  can  never  be  displaced  from  his 
proud  position. 
Humphry  Davy  was  born  at  Penzance  on  December  17, 
1778,  of  a good  middle-class  family.  Although  of  narrow 
means,  the  members  of  the  family  had  for  many  generations 
received  a liberal  education.  Humj)hry’s  father,  Eobert 
Davy,  was  a wood-carver  of  talent,  who  was  considered,  in  his 
own  neighbourhood,  as  the  “ last  of  the  carvers,”  and  from 
his  small  size  was  called  “ tlie  little  carver.” 
When  Hum])hi’y,  the  eldest  of  a family  of  five,  was  nine 
years  old,  his  father  succeeded  to  a small  property  at  Varfell,  a 
cop’r’hold  of  seventy-nine  acres  on  the  shore  of  Mount’s  Bay, 
three  miles  from  Penzance.  The  child  was  then  adopted  by 
Mr.  John  Tonkin,  a surgeon  of  Penzance,  who  died  in  1801, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-tw'o.  He  was  first  placed  at  a preparatory 
school,  but  Mr.  Bushell,  the  master,  was  so  struck  by  the 
progress  made  by  his  pupil  that  he  urged  the  father  to  remove 
him  to  a superior  school.  He  then  went  to  the  grammar  school 
at  Penzance,  where  he  stayed  for  several  years  ; and  for  one 
year  he  was  placed  under  Dr.  Cardew',  at  the  Truro  Grammar 
School,  which  was  reputed  to  be  the  best  in  the  w'est  of  England. 
He  left  in  December,  1793,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  and  his  school 
life  was  completed.  At  school  he  was  recognised  as  clev(>r, 
with  a precocious  mind,  but  he  was  nevertheless  a thorough 
boy  and  not  of  a j)articularly  studious  habit. 
It  is  traditionally  reported  that  so  early  was  his  taste  for 
angling  developed  that  he  attempted  to  fish  in  the  gutters  of 
his  native  town.  What,  however,  is  of  more  importance  in 
connection  w ith  his  love  of  the  sport  is  an  anecdote  communi- 
cated to  Dr.  Paris  as  to  his  mode  of  catching  grey  mullet  off 
Penzance  pier.  “ The  mullet  is  a very  difficult  fish  to  hook, 
on  account  of  the  diminutive  size  of  its  mouth  ; but  Davy 
adopted  a plan  of  his  own  contrivance.  Observing  that  thev 
always  swam  in  shoals,  he  attached  a succession  of  pilchards  to 
a string,  reaching  from  the  surface  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea, 
and  while  his  prey  were  sw'imming  around  the  bait,  he  w'ould, 
by  a sudden  movement  of  the  string  entangle  several  of  them 
on  the  hooks,  and  thus  dexterously  capture  them.”  ‘ In  1795 
Davy  was  apprenticed  to  Mr.  (afterwards  Dr.)  John  Bingham 
Borlase,  at  first  a surgeon  and  apothecary,  but  subsequently 
a physician  of  repute,  at  Penzance.  In  his  hours  of  relaxation 
* Paris’s  Life  of  Bar y,  1831,  Vol.  1,  page  8. 
