Chemist. He was a British chemist of the late 18th century into the early 19th, who made numerous scientific discoveries and inventions. Besides his scientific research and inventions, he was an author and an educator. Born into a middle-class household, he was well educated and was intelligent with a trait of curiosity. He wrote poetry when he was young. He had a hope of becoming a physician, but his father died in 1794. After becoming an apothecary's apprentice, he moved in 1798 to Bristol to work at Thomas Beddoes's Pneumatic Institution. In 1799, while there, he discovered the anesthetic effects of nitrous oxide, which was a major advancement for the medical field. In 1800 he published "Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, Chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide, or Dephlogisticated Nitrous Air, and Its Respiration." He was recognized as a worthy lecturer at the new Royal Institute of Great Britain, becoming the facility's Director of the Laboratory from 1801 to 1825, Professor of Chemistry from 1802 to 1812, and Honorary Professor from 1813 to 1823. In 1803 he was elected to the Royal Society in London and made secretary in 1807. In 1805 he was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society. In 1806 he gave a lecture called "On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity." This lecture earned him the Napoleon Prize from the Institut de France in the following year. Using electricity, he isolated several elements for the first time including potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, barium, magnesium, and boron in 1808. He proved that a diamond was made from carbon. He discovered chlorine, which is used in tanning, and iodine and did early research on voltaic cells, batteries, and electrolysis. He was knighted by King George III in 1812 and made a baronet in 1818. In 1812 he published his text, "Elements of Chemical Philosophy." He left the Royal Institute in 1812 after his marriage to Jane Apreece, a wealthy heiress, touring Europe until 1815. He applied science to farming to his 1813 text, "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry." To make coal mining a safer environment from flammable explosive gases, he invented in 1815 the Davy Lamp, which was an early version of the arc lamp. In the 1820s he advised the Royal Navy's Admiralty on protection of ship's bottoms and on improving optical glass. After receiving the Royal Society's Royal Medal, he was elected in 1820 as President of the Royal Society but resigned due to a decline in his health seven years later. He established the Zoological Society and the Royal Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park. Shortly afterward, he began another European tour, dying of a paralytic stroke in Geneva, Switzerland. He was buried in Cimetière des Rois in Geneve, yet has a cenotaph at Westminister Abbey. Besides his scientific texts, he wrote a book on fly-fishing in 1828. Posthumously, his book "Consolations in Travel" was published in 1830.