Humphry Davy's Notebooks: How Poetry Helped Create Scientific Knowledge

Lead Research Organisation: Lancaster University
Department Name: English and Creative Writing

Abstract

In 2019, AHRC funding enabled the crowdsourced transcriptions of five notebooks kept by the nineteenth-century chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, between 1795 and 1805. Transcriptions of these notebooks revealed Davy's creative mind at work: lines of poetry were written among descriptions of chemical experiments, philosophical musings, geological drawings, and accounts of his life. With this new project, we will crowdsource transcriptions of his entire notebook collection: there are 65 held at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI), in London, and five held in Kresen Kernow in Redruth, Cornwall.
Davy kept notebooks throughout his life but most of the pages of these notebooks have never been transcribed before. The notebooks show that he was writing poetry in the laboratory while conducting scientific experiments. Most entries have yet to be dated or considered in the light of what they tell us about Davy, his scientific discoveries, and the relationship between poetry and science. We will crowdsource transcriptions of the notebooks using the people-powered research platform Zooniverse. Online and in-person discussions with participants will enable us to find out how transcribing Davy's notebooks changes their view of how poetry and science could co-exist today. The consequences of seeing the arts and sciences as divided and separate are serious. Viewing them as 'two cultures' hinders our ability to solve major world problems. Speaking to a named priority area in the AHRC's 2019 Delivery Plan, 'Arts and science, arts in science', this project will ask what we can learn from the example of Davy's notebooks that will help us rethink what we understand about the relationship between the arts and sciences in the nineteenth century and today.
Davy was the foremost 'man of science' of his time. He isolated more chemical elements than any individual has before or since. Between October and December 1815, he invented a miners' safety lamp that came to be known as the Davy Lamp, saving countless lives in Britain and Europe and vastly improving the nation's industrial capability. He also led a fascinating life, rising up through society's ranks from relatively modest origins to become the President of the Royal Society. His politics and religious beliefs changed from radical to conservative as his career progressed. Davy is not currently associated with poetry or well known as a poet, but the notebooks show that he was writing poetry in the laboratory while conducting scientific experiments throughout his life. Many of these poems will be transcribed and published for the first time on the Lancaster Digital Library and in a selected print edition.
We will disseminate research findings, encourage participation in the project, and ask key questions in our public engagement and impact events, which include two transcribe-a-thons, a map-a-thon, a workshop on how to use the newly-developed transcription tools in other crowdsourcing projects, an academic conference on poetry in nineteenth-century scientific notebooks, a computer masterclass using data produced by the project, and an event that will consider Davy's attitude to race. We will also create an exhibition of Davy's and others' notebooks held at the RI, which will travel to the north-west and north-east of England.
We will present two panel sessions at academic conferences and produce a special issue of an academic journal on the results of the project. The already-existing Massive Online Open Course (MOOC), previously funded by the AHRC, will be enhanced to feature new tasks specifically on the notebooks. Final transcriptions of whole collection of notebooks will be published, with images of the pages themselves, on the Lancaster Digital Library, with improved new and exciting features. An accompanying project website will present a map of Davy's life, utilising the information that emerges from this project and a previous AHRC-funded project on Davy's letters.

Planned Impact

1. Zooniverse participants: There are 1.9 million Zooniverse researchers and our pilot project reached 505 of these, 77 of whom responded to a survey. We know something of our audience due to this survey: e.g. they were mainly UK women. Of the total respondents 29.7% were over 65 years old and 45.8% held a postgraduate degree. The survey also revealed the perceived benefits of the work: 62.2% benefited by learning new research and technical skills. Additionally, respondents enjoyed contributing towards a 'real' research project (93.2%), helping to preserve manuscript materials (87.8%), and increased personal satisfaction (78.4%). The new tools we develop will provide a prototype for creators of other Zooniverse transcription projects.
2. The people who come to the transcribe-a-thon and map-a-thon events: These events will bring people into universities (and use their computer rooms). We will use the Press Offices and Impact Officers at Lancaster, Manchester, and UCL universities to ensure that we reach as inclusive and diverse an audience as possible. Numbers are limited to 20 because of the intensive nature of the activity. The benefits are detailed above. Transcribing and mapping will lead to better understanding of Davy's work, his poetry and the symbiosis of poetry and science in the nineteenth century, and offer transferable skills.
3. The Solihull and Birmingham Jamaican and Caribbean Family History Society: This society has been meeting for many decades and has a particular interest in tracing family histories from Jamaica and the Caribbean. Society members tend to be from first- or second-generation immigrant families. Benefits will include knowledge of Davy's life and career, and contribution to, and opportunity to shape, an ongoing research project.
4. Digital Masterclass at the Royal Institution: These are hands-on and interactive extracurricular sessions for keen young people all around the UK delivered in a purpose-built room in the Royal Institution. Groups of c.25 Year 9 students are drawn from a range of local schools, ensuring a good mix in terms of state/independent schools, genders and ethnicities. Benefits include helping students see that the STEM subjects and careers are for everyone.
5. MOOC participants: We surveyed MOOC participants for the first run in 2017; this gives us insight into audiences for our proposed new project. The 769 people who completed these surveys respectively revealed the range of people interested in Davy, including: ex-miners; dentists; anaesthetists; drug counsellors; chemists; historical novelists; geologists; and museum workers. MOOC feedback demonstrated benefit to users. Benefits include learning a new skill and being part of a community.
6. Royal Institution exhibition and open day visitors: Audiences for previous AHRC-funded Davy projects have visited the RI's building and museum. Over 67,000 visited the RI museum in 2018. One MOOC participant said they would take their grandchildren on their next visit to London. At a 2017 open day at the RI, 45 people attended to see the notebooks: one unique benefit is the opportunity to personally experience historical artefacts of national importance.
7. Visitors to the Wordsworth Trust and County Hall, Morpeth exhibitions: The Wordsworth Trust's Audience Development Plan for 2019 gives us a sense of who visits the museum: in 2016, 38,872 people, including 8,142 young people in formal education and 4,813 via general outreach (including vulnerable adults and families). Our exhibition will enhance the Wordsworth Trust's offering and benefit by increasing awareness that science and poetry were aligned in the Romantic period. The exhibition will also travel to the foyer of County Hall, Morpeth, a thoroughfare for officers and members of the Council and members of the public who visit for County Council services. The additional benefit for this region, which was once dominated by mining, is to experience heritage first hand.

Publications

10 25 50
publication icon
Blickhan S (2024) The benefits of 'slow' development: towards a best practice for sustainable technical infrastructure through the Davy Notebooks Project in Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science

publication icon
Ruston S (2024) Protean Forms in Humphry Davy's Notebooks in Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science

 
Description Our volunteers transcribed and the project teams has now edited and finalised 11,471 notebook pages. Adding in pre-existing transcriptions of Davy's notebooks, which we've decided to make use of in our edition, we've now surpassed the 95% completion mark. Our registered volunteers total now stands at 3581. If we had to choose the best discoveries out of the many found so far, one would be enabling us to more exactly date the Davy's momentous isolation of sodium and potassium. We also learned from notebooks entries at this time that he experimented with the names sodagen and potagen and even considered sodarchium and potarchium. But there has been so much more. Volunteers have identified places that Davy sketched, people and texts he mentions. The names of female subscribers to the RI have been found, as well as the address of the tailor who we presume made Davy a new suit for his first Bakerian Lecture. We have discovered more about life as a lab assistant in the RI under Davy's direction. We have been tweeting these new discoveries regularly as well as communicating via other social media and in our website blog.
Exploitation Route The notebook transcriptions will be an entirely accessible and searchable new primary sources of Davy's thinking and writing, which can supplement but also complicate his published works. The project has massively enlarged our knowledge of his interests and we now have many more unpublished poems written by him. Since launching as a pilot project in 2019, the Davy Notebooks Project has worked with Zooniverse to develop a range of new transcription methodologies and tools, informed by feedback received from our transcriber community. We were one of the first projects to use sequential (rather than random) serving of pages on the platform, which provides a better user experience, and to use an expanded range of text modifiers during transcription (deletion, insertion, unclear, + underline, superscript), which allows for the production of more sophisticated base transcriptions. Our influence on other Zooniverse projects has been clear: the established Edgeworth Letters Project and the Gravestone Project have both acknowledged the Davy Notebooks Project as a direct influence on their projects, and other, earlier stage projects, including the Transcribing Ruskin's Notebooks Project and the Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project, have sought advice on setting up and running their own Zooniverse projects. Individual researchers have commented that the Davy Notebooks Project is 'an ideal format to take inspiration from' and a 'very inspiring [project designed by] thought leader[s] in this field'.
Sectors Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

URL https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/davynotebooks/
 
Description The crowdsourced transcriptions using the platform Zooniverse (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/humphrydavy/davy-notebooks-project) have contributed to increasing the confidence, technical skills, and digital literacy of our 'citizen scientists'.
First Year Of Impact 2020
Sector Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

 
Description AHRC Impact Acceleration Account
Amount £491,679 (GBP)
Funding ID AH/X003582/1 
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2022 
End 03/2025
 
Description 'Excel in Science' webinar, University of Nottingham: 'Re-Emerging Research' (Wednesday 16 March 2022, 1-2pm, on Zoom) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact 'Excel in Science' webinar, University of Nottingham: 'Re-Emerging Research' (Wednesday 16 March 2022, 1-2pm, on Zoom)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description 'Science and/or Poetry: Interdisciplinarity in Notebooks' conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact In late July, more than two dozen international scholars of the arts and sciences came together for 'Science and/or Poetry: Interdisciplinarity in Notebooks', a conference organised by the Davy Notebooks Project team and held in Lancaster.

The conference theme was inspired by our efforts to digitise and interpret Humphry Davy's notebooks, a goal which we, along with our volunteers, have been working towards since the project's beginning. Taking what we've learned from Davy's notebooks as a starting point, we broadened the scope of our call for papers to examine how literature and science have interacted within the pages of notebooks across difference disciplines and historical periods. We were delighted by the diversity of approach and areas of study in the abstracts we received, a range that was reflected in the fascinating papers we heard over the course of our two-day meeting.

The first day of our conference took place at beautiful Lancaster Castle. We began with an excellent morning discussion centring on interdisciplinarity, poetry, and science in notebooks. The first panel examined Coleridge's complex notebooks, considering the power of touch and materiality, dream records, incomplete readings, and more. Our second group of speakers explored poetics, scientific experimentation, demonstration, and the evolution of interdisciplinarity in notebooks of Davy, Berzelius, Coleridge, and Mach. The third panel covered fascinating projects focusing on collaboration and outreach in the arts and sciences, including contributions from The Lyell Project and The Science Museum, as well as a member of own project team speaking on the Davy Notebooks Project Reading Group.

To end the first day, we listened to a brilliant keynote by Greg Tate on Mathilde Blind's 1890s notebook, which included consideration of Victorian ideas of waste and raised thought-provoking questions about the use and meaning of notebooks. This spurred interesting conversations that we carried over to our conference dinner on campus.

The second day of the conference was held in the Digital Scholarship Lab in the Library, which is linked with Lancaster Digital Collections, one of our project partners and the future host of the digital editions that will result from our project. The first group of panel speakers considered the form of institutional collections, methods of learning and training in notebooks, and the relationship between biography and the form of author notebooks, with a focus on Sloane's herbarias, eighteenth-century Scottish school notebooks, and Davy's early life. Our second panel explored a huge range of notebook practices from the eighteenth century to the Victorian period through the twentieth century, with excellent discussions of artistic skill, the systemisation of lifelong writing, and fragmentary posthumous archives in the notebooks of Gerald Manley Hopkins, Thomas Gray, and Sara Teasdale.

Before lunch, members of the Davy Notebooks Project Team came together to present a Roundtable on the forthcoming Notes and Records of the Royal Society Special Issue, which will focus on findings from the project. Conference delegates as well as virtual participants engaged in discussion about the papers within the special issue, offering useful ideas to the team. The last panel looked at collaborative or shared notebooks in both the Romantic and Victorian periods, which led to interesting discussions on interventions, authorship, and legacy in the shared notebooks of Mary Coleridge, Edward Ellerker Williams, and Edward John Trelawny. Our final part of the conference was a wonderful and wide-ranging lecture from our second keynote, Dahlia Porter, speaking on experimental notebooks and the embodied labour underpinning scientific and procedural processes in notebooks, by delving into the complex notebooks of the Wedgwood Collection. Dahlia's paper resulted in a lively Q&A discussion, which capped a brilliant day of exchanging ideas.

Over the course of the conference, several intersecting themes emerged. These included considering how interdisciplinarity might spur creativity in both the arts and sciences. We collectively reflected on the intimacy of working with notebooks as well as the various layers of mediation and touch that manuscripts can transmit over time and to different individuals, whether researchers, or archivists, or members of the public. We discussed the value of notebooks as texts in themselves, and whether they can and should be read on their own merits rather than mining them as source documents for later publications or scientific discoveries. We talked about the powerful influence held by institutions over the interpretation of manuscripts, which they are often the first to categorise, actions which have a lasting impact on how they are encountered by future readers in terms of disciplinarity. Finally, we considered the importance of literary and scientific collaboration in notebooks as well as the silent labour of workers that may underpin the writing or experiments captured within their pages.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description 'Zooniverse - A Beginner's Guide' workshop, Archives West Midlands (Wednesday 16 November 2022, 2.30-4.30pm) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact 'Zooniverse - A Beginner's Guide' workshop, Archives West Midlands (Wednesday 16 November 2022, 2.30-4.30pm)
Davy Notebooks Project contributions:
Samantha Blickhan 'A Brief Introduction to Crowdsourcing on the Zooniverse Platform'
Andrew Lacey 'The Davy Notebooks Project'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/davynotebooks/events/
 
Description - Gave an online talk to the Regency Fiction Writers group (27/1/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Gave an online talk to the Regency Fiction Writers group (27/1/22). The group is based in the US.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://thebeaumonde.com/main/
 
Description - Organised and chaired panel at the British Society for Literature and Science conference (7-9/4/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact - Organised and chaired panel at the British Society for Literature and Science conference (7-9/4/22). We also held a trancribe-a-thon.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.bsls.ac.uk/2021/07/fhqsga/
 
Description Archive Spotlight: Humphry Davy's Notebooks and the Navy 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Article written by me.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4782
 
Description Article for The Messenger 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston wrote an article for the Messenger (the Wordsworth Friends' newsletter/magazine), number 80 (2023).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Article in the Lancaster Guardian 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Article written about our upcoming library workshops
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/whats-on/things-to-do/public-invited-to-shine-a-light-on-sir-hum...
 
Description BARS/Wordsworth Grasmere webinar 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Profs Sharon Ruston and Frank James gave talks about Humphry Davy and showed participants round the exhibition (online).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4934
 
Description Bradford Literature Festival talk 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Gave talk and signed books at the Bradford Literature Festival and did a pre-recorded interview for radio (26/6/22). Was mainly on Frankenstein book but I also talked about Davy Notebooks.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/
 
Description British Association for Romantic Studies/North American Society for the Study of Romanticism Joint International Conference 2022: New Romanticisms (Tuesday 2-Friday 5 August 2022, Edge Hill University) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Davy Notebooks Project Roundtable: Andrew Lacey 'New Thoughts on Romantic Digital Editions: The Davy Notebooks Project'

Davy Notebooks Project Panel:
Alexis Wolf 'The Son of Liberty: Literary and Scientific Experimentation in the Davy Notebooks'
Andrew Lacey 'Private Investigations? Davy's Notemaking'
Eleanor Bird 'Humphry Davy, Agriculture, and Abolitionists and Advocates of the Slave Trade in His Network'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.nassr.ca/nassr_bars_2022
 
Description British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 51st Annual Conference: Indifference and Engagement (Friday 7 January 2022, 4-6pm, on Zoom) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Roundtable discussion. Andrew Lacey presented on 'Digitizing Eighteenth-Century Letters and Manuscripts: A Conversation: The Davy Notebooks Project'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.bsecs.org.uk/conferences/
 
Description Byron Society talk 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston gave a talk 'Humphry Davy's Notebooks'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.thebyronsociety.com/past-events/humphry-davys-notebooks/
 
Description Chemists don't focus on just the science; they are poets and bakers as well 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston interviewed for this piece in the Chemical and Engineering News.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://cen.acs.org/education/science-communication/Chemists-dont-focus-just-science/101/i33?ref=sea...
 
Description Davidson Institute website article 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston interview for Ettay Nevo (9/1/24), an Israeli Science Journalist with the Davidson Institute website - the largest popular science website in Hebrew. The institute is affiliated with the Weizmann Institute of Science, but works as an independent newsroom. Some of the items are translated to Arabic and English. The website also has an elaborate science history section, featuring stories about important scientists, discoveries or events in the history of science.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/online/firefly/%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%...
 
Description Davy Notebooks Exhibition 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Travelling exhibition of Davy notebooks, visiting the Royal Institution; County Hall, Morpeth; and Wordsworth Grasmere. Began at Royal Institution on 23rd September 2023 and ended at Grasmere on 23rd March 2024. We disseminated the findings of the project including a section 'Decolonising Davy'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Davy Notebooks Project 'Using the Zooniverse Project Builder' workshop (20 May 2022, Lancaster University) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Davy Notebooks Project 'Using the Zooniverse Project Builder' workshop (20 May 2022, Lancaster University)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/davynotebooks/events/
 
Description Davy Notebooks Project Hybrid Transcribe-a-thon 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Our first hybrid transcribe-a-thon took place on Saturday 11 February 2023, 1-4pm (UK time), at the Morrab Library, Penzance, and on Zoom.

We had 10 participants (4 in person and 6 online), and managed to transcribe just over a quarter of notebook GS-6-1.

The format of the event was:
Welcome and overview of the event 15 minutes
Transcription task 1 60 minutes
Frank James's talk: 'Davy and Cornwall' 25 minutes
Break for refreshments 15 minutes
Transcription task 2 50 minutes
Feedback 10 minutes
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Davy Notebooks Project In-person Transcribe-a-thon (14 May 2022, University College London) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Transcribe-a-thon and we gave talks.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/davynotebooks/events/
 
Description Davy Notebooks Project Online Volunteers' Meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact On Monday 24 July 2023, members of the Davy Notebooks Project team met with some of our wonderful Zooniverse volunteer transcribers to ask them about their experiences of working on the project. The event was organised for our forthcoming Notes and Records of the Royal Society Special Issue, which will focus on findings from the project. Sharon welcomed everyone and gave her sincere thanks to all the volunteers for their efforts on the project. It was a great opportunity for members of the Davy Notebooks Project team to ask the volunteers questions and for volunteers to get a chance to share their experiences and ask questions of the team and each other.

Five of our volunteers - Helen, Carrie, John, David, and Carlene - presented on their favourite pages and discoveries from Davy's notebooks so far. From Helen, we had a sketch Davy had made of Carrick-a-Rede in County Antrim, with its tiny rope bridge (which Helen had helped us to identify the location of). Carrie and John spoke about two poems written by Anna Beddoes in Davy's notebooks and reflected on Anna and Davy's relationship. David spoke about the way Davy observed the world around him as a chemist and the materiality of the notebook pages - with a page showing a possible drop of rain. Carlene gave a fantastic close reading of a little-discussed Davy poem. It was a fascinating and humbling experience to learn about the wide-ranging material that has inspired our volunteers and to hear their brilliant insights.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Davy Notebooks Project Online Volunteers' Meeting (25 February 2022, on Zoom) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Davy Notebooks Project Online Volunteers' Meeting (25 February 2022, on Zoom). I gave a talk.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/davynotebooks/events/
 
Description Davy Notebooks Project Online Volunteers' Meeting (27 June 2022, on Teams) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Davy Notebooks Project Online Volunteers' Meeting (27 June 2022, on Teams)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/davynotebooks/events/
 
Description Gave paper at BSLS conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Gave paper at British Society for Literature and Science, online, April 2021
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.bsls.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/BSLS-2021-Programme.pdf
 
Description Gave paper at Churchill College, Cambridge conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Gave 20 minute paper at Diaries conference online for hybrid academic conference held at Churchill College, Cambridge
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://socialhistory.org.uk/shs_event/cfp-keeping-and-making-diaries-historical-sources-and-perspec...
 
Description Gave paper at Oxford Symposium on 'Imagining AI' (9-10/9/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact - Invited to give paper at Oxford Symposium on 'Imagining AI' (9-10/9/22). Was mainly about Frankenstein but also discussed Davy Notebooks Project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://hsm.ox.ac.uk/imagining-ai
 
Description Gave paper at University of Chieti-Pescara conference, Italy, October 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Gave paper at University of Chieti-Pescara conference, Italy, "The Language of Science in the Long Nineteenth Century", online, October 2021
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.dilass.unich.it/sites/st06/files/xi_cusve_conference_programme_27-28_october_2021_0.pdf
 
Description Gave paper at the British Association for Romantic Studies Digital Event (16/6/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Invited to give paper at the British Association for Romantic Studies Digital Event (16/6/22) online
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4245
 
Description Gave research seminar paper to the Lit/Sci Lab at the University of Birmingham (6/5/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact - Gave research seminar paper to the Lit/Sci Lab at the University of Birmingham (6/5/22)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/istemmics/lit-sci-lab.aspx
 
Description Gave talk and signed books at the Oxford Literature Festival (28/3/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Gave talk and signed books at the Oxford Literature Festival (28/3/22). While this mainly concerned my book on Frankenstein, I also talked about the Davy Notebooks project and Davy's links with Frankenstein.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/
 
Description Gave talk at the Athenaeum Club on Davy's Notebooks, 16/11/22 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Gave talk at the Athenaeum Club on Davy's Notebooks, 16/11/22
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.athenaeumclub.co.uk/
 
Description Gave to talk to the Lunar Society, Litchfield (6/1/23) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Gave in person talk to the Lunar Society, Litchfield at a hybrid event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.erasmusdarwin.org/event/the-notebooks-of-sir-humphry-davy-1778-1829-by-professor-sharon-...
 
Description Guardian/Observer article - 'Reams of secret poetry by pioneering British scientist finally come to light' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston interviewed by author for this article. For a time it was the top read article on the Guardian website. It then came out as a ful page article in the Observer.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/30/reams-of-secret-poetry-by-a-sir-humphry-davy-british...
 
Description Humphry Davy Poetry Workshop - Morpeth Library 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Poetry workshop run by Prof Sharon Ruston
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=133048
 
Description Humphry Davy: Laughing Gas, Literature, and the Lamp 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The much revised Massive Open Online Course ran with 426 enrolled. Prof Sharon Ruston and others revised it so that it showcased the work done on the notebooks project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/humphry-davy
 
Description Lancaster University Library Festival workshop (25/9/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact - Lancaster University Library Festival workshop (25/9/22). As part of the event, we had a Creative Writer run a session on journalling and wellbeing (connected to Davy's notebooks).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/library/whats-on/library-festival-2022/
 
Description Literature and Science webinar 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston did a talk on the Davy Notebooks Project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://literaturesa.co.uk/webinars
 
Description Meet the Manuscript event with the Bodleian Library, Oxford (13/6/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Meet the Manuscript event with the Bodleian Library, Oxford (13/6/22). Though this was mainly about Frankenstein manuscripts, I also talked about one of Davy's notebook pages too.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/meet-the-manuscripts-online-lecture-series
 
Description Online Transcribe-a-thon 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We held an online transcribe-a-thon where participants took part in transcribing the notebooks of Sir Humphry Davy, 4th August 2021.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Part of roundtable at conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Part of roundtable at British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 51st Annual Conference: Indifference and Engagement (Friday 7 January 2022, 4-6pm, on Zoom)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.bsecs.org.uk/conferences/
 
Description Plenary paper at 'Romantic Interventions' conference, University of Dortmund (3-5/2/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Plenary paper at 'Romantic Interventions' conference, University of Dortmund (3-5/2/22) online.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://rominter2021.wixsite.com/tudortmund
 
Description Project panel at conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact •Davy Notebooks Project Panel, British Association for Romantic Studies conference, online, August 2021
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://bars.ac.uk/conference2021/
 
Description Public lecture for U3A Science and Technology group 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact January 2023 - 'Humphry Davy (1778-1829): His Life, Letters, and Notebooks', public lecture for U3A Science and Technology group (online; c. 75 attendees).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMZOHesfhtQ
 
Description Research seminar on my book Creating Romanticism at the University of Dortmund (11/1/22) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Research seminar on my book Creating Romanticism at the University of Dortmund (11/1/22), chapter on Humphry Davy and the sublime.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Romanticism and its Media conference paper 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston gave a plenary talk 'Humphry Davy's Notebooks'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://conference.uni-leipzig.de/ger2023/
 
Description Royal Society of Chemistry - History Group 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston gave a plenary talk 'Humphry Davy's Protean Poetics'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Spoke at Lancaster Digital Collections Launch, September 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Spoke at Lancaster Digital Collections Launch, September 2021
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/library/events/lancaster-digital-collections-public-launch
 
Description Talk at Henriche Heine University, Dusseldorf 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston gave a talk on the Davy Notebooks Project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Talk for the Birmingham Lunar Society 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Andrew gave this talk 'Sir Humphry Davy: His Life, Letters, & Notebooks' to the Birmingham Lunar Society online (41 attendees); 22nd February 2023.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://lunarsociety.org.uk/event/sir-humphry-davy-1778-1829-his-life-letters-and-notebooks/
 
Description Talk for the Wordsworth Trust Friends 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Sharon Ruston did a talk on the Davy Notebooks Project to accompany the first day of the exhibition there.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description The Davy Notebooks Project - Notes and Records of the Royal Society 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This event offers very short tasters of our special issue of the Notes and Records of the Royal Society will be the primary vehicle of disseminating the findings of our major AHRC-funded research project transcribing and annotating the complete set of Davy's notebooks. The project brings together leading scholars in a number of fields: History of Science, English Literature, Colonialism and Empire, and Digital Humanities. The notebooks have never been transcribed in their entirety before and made publicly available. Connections will be made between these and Davy's letters, lectures, published works, as well as his chemistry, geology, and other scientific interests, and his life and career.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://cassyni.com/events/NSdksZ86B88N4t9uPr4k53
 
Description Unpublished Davy poem published in the Hampstead Literary Society Journal, 2 (2022) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact October 2022, Dr Andrew Lacey 'I view the cloud tinged by the western sun', previously unpublished Davy poem published in the Hampstead Literary Society Journal, 2 (2022)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://hampsteadlitsoc.com/
 
Description Volunteer Meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We held a Volunteers Meeting to meet with some of the Zooniverse participants in our Davy Notebook transcription project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/humphrydavy/davy-notebooks-project
 
Description Why thousands of volunteers are transcribing the notebooks of the scientist who inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Article written by two of the research associates on the project: Drs Alexis Wolf and Andrew Lacey
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://theconversation.com/why-thousands-of-volunteers-are-transcribing-the-notebooks-of-the-scient...