The City gave him a public funeral, and representatives of every institution in the town followed his remains to their resting-place in the cemetery at Plain-Palais. A simple monument, with the following inscription, marks the spot:--
HIC JACET HUMPHRY DAVY EQUES MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ BARONETUS OLIM REGIÆ SOCIET. LONDIN. PRÆSES SUMMUS ARCANORUM NATURÆ INDIGATOR. NATUS PENZANTIÆ CORNUBIENSUM XVII DECEMB. MDCCLXXVIII. OBIIT GENEVÆ HELVETIORUM XXIX MAI MDCCCXXIX.
His widow placed a tablet to his memory in the north transept of Westminster Abbey. His baronetcy died with him. By his will he directed that the service of plate given to him by the coal-owners should, after Lady Davy’s death, pass to his brother, and that in the event of his having no heirs in a position to make use of it, it should be melted and given to the Royal Society, “to found a medal to be given annually for the most important discovery in chemistry anywhere made in Europe or Anglo-America.” This is the origin of the Davy Medal which has been awarded annually by the Society since 1877.
Many eloquent tributes have been paid to the genius and labours of Davy, and some of these eulogies are among the most brilliant passages in the literature of science. One of the best-known is from the gifted pen of Dr. Henry in the preface to his “Elements of Chemistry,” published soon after Davy’s death. He thus sketches the more striking characteristics of the great chemist.
“Davy,” he says, “was imbued with the spirit, and was a master of the practice, of the inductive logic; and he has left us some of the noblest examples of the efficacy of that great instrument of human reason in the discovery of truth. He applied it not only to connect classes of facts of more limited extent and importance but to develope great and comprehensive laws, which embrace phenomena that are almost universal to the natural world. In explaining these laws, he cast upon them the illuminations of his own clear and vivid conceptions;--he felt an intense admiration of the beauty, order and harmony which are conspicuous in the perfect chemistry of Nature;--and he expressed these feelings with a force of eloquence which could issue only from a mind of the highest powers and of the finest sensibilities.”