DAVIES GIDDY GILBERT, D.C.L., P.R.S.
Born March 6, 1767. Died December 24, 1839.
Davies Giddy Gilbert was born at Tredrea, in the parish of St. Erth, in the west of Cornwall. His paternal name was Giddy, his father being the Rev. Edward Giddy of St. Erth. His mother, an heiress of very considerable property, was Catherine Davies, allied to the noble family of Sandys, and a descendant of William Noye, attorney general in the reign of Charles the First. Young Giddy, not being of very robust health, was reared with great care, and his education chiefly superintended by his father, who was an accomplished scholar, and a man of acknowledged ability and attainments.
As Gilbert grew up, it was thought desirable to place him in the grammar school at Penzance; and for this purpose his parentsremoved for about eighteen months to that town. In 1782 they went to Bristol, where their son's studies were assisted for some time by Mr. Benjamin Donne. In 1785 Gilbert matriculated at Oxford, and became a gentleman-commoner of Pembroke College. He was already master of a considerable amount of mathematical and physical knowledge, the greater portion of which he had acquired by almost unassisted application. While residing at the University he associated with the senior members of his college, preferring their company to that of students of his own age; and considering the natural bent of his tastes, which led him to prefer the study of the severer sciences to the elegancies of classical literature, it is not surprising that such should be the case. 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 deserved that name.
During his residence at Oxford, Gilbert was a regular attendant at the lectures on anatomy and mineralogy, delivered by Dr. Thompson, at Christ Church. He also attended with assiduity the lectures on chemistry and botany of Drs. Beddoes and Sibthorp, with whom he contracted a friendship, which terminated only with their lives. To the former of these two gentlemen Gilbert subsequently introduced his friend Sir Humphry Davy, at that time in comparatively humble life, but whose extraordinary combination of poetical and philosophical genius had attracted Gilbert's attention, and he thus had the merit and good fortune of contributing to rescue from obscurity one of the greatest discoverers in modern chemistry.
Mr. Gilbert continued to reside principally at his college until the year 1793, when, having previously taken the honorary degree of M.A., he returned to Cornwall to serve as sheriff, and to divide his time, between the cultivation of science and literature, and the duties of a magistrate in a populous and busy town. Previous to this, in the year 1791, he had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, his certificate describing him as being "devoted to mathematical and philosophical pursuits." It was signed by Thomas Hornsby, Savilian professor of astronomy, G. Shuckburgh, N. Maskelyne, George Staunton, and other Fellows. In 1804 Mr. Gilbert became a member of Parliament for Helstone, and at the general election in 1806, was chosen to represent Bodmin, continuing to sit for that borough until December, 1832. He was emphatically the representative of scientific interests in the House of Commons, and was continually appointed to serve on committees of inquiry touching scientific and financial questions. He acted as Chairman of the committee for rebuilding London Bridge, causing it to be widened ten feet more than originally proposed, and he greatly contributed by his exertions to carry many very important public projects, amongst which may be mentioned, the Breakwater at Plymouth,and the bill for the revision of weights and measures, of which he was appointed a commissioner. He was also a member of the Board of Longitude.
On the 8th of April, 1808, he married Mary Ann Gilbert, only niece of Charles Gilbert of Eastbourne in Sussex, under whose will he came into possession of considerable estates in that county; and, in compliance with its conjunctions, obtained permission to assume the name and arms of Gilbert.
Mr. Gilbert contributed several important papers on mathematical subjects to the 'Philosophical Transactions.' In July, 1819, he succeeded Samuel Lyons in the office of treasurer to the Royal Society, which office he retained until elected President in 1828. He was also the author of numerous papers in the 'Quarterly Journal of Science and Arts,' and presented the world with the fruits of his labours as an antiquary, by publishing, in 1838, 'The Parochial History of Cornwall,' in four volumes 8vo., founded on the manuscript histories of Mr. Hals and Mr. Tonkin. Mr. Gilbert was a diligent collector of ancient traditions, legendary tales, songs, and carols, illustrating the manners of the Cornish peasants, and printed various ballads at his house at Eastbourne. He possessed great memory and powers of quotation and anecdote; his conversation has been described as being a continued stream of learning and philosophy, adapted with excellent taste to the capacity of his auditory, and enlivened with anecdotes to which the most listless could not but listen and learn.
"His manners," says Dr. Buckland, "were most unaffected, childlike, gentle, and natural. As a friend, he was kind, considerate, forbearing, patient, and generous; and when the grave was closed over him, not one man, woman, or child, who was honoured with his acquaintance, but felt that he had a friend less in the world."
Mr. Gilbert retired from the chair of the Royal Society in 1830, and two years later from Parliament; he did not, however, resign himself to repose, but continued in many ways still to advocate the cause of science. In 1839 he became much weaker in health and spirits; and although he made a journey to Durham, and afterwards into Cornwall, where he presided for the last time at the Anniversary of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall (of which he had been President since its institution in 1814), he was evidently unequal to the exertions he was making. His last visit was to Oxford, which University had some years before conferred on him the title of D.C.L. From that period he never went into public, but, bidding farewell to London, retired to his house at Eastbourne on the 7th of November, 1839, where he died on the 24th of the following December. His body was borne to the grave by his own labourers, and followed by his widow and family, which consisted of one son (the present J. D. Gilbert, F.R.S.) and two daughters.—Weld's History of the Royal Society, with Memoirs of the Presidents.London, 1848.