Curiously enough, at the very time when George Stephenson was busy
inventing his lamp at Killingworth, Sir Humphrey Davy was working
at just the same matter in London; and the two lamps, though a
little different in minor points of construction, are practically
the same in general principle. Now, Sir Humphrey was then the
great fashionable natural philosopher of the day, the favourite of
London society, and the popular lecturer of the Royal Institution.
His friends thought it a monstrous idea that his splendid life-
saving apparatus should have been independently devised by "an
engine-wright of Killingworth of the name of Stephenson--a person
not even possessing a knowledge of the elements of chemistry."
This sounds very odd reading at the present day, when the engine-
wright of the name of Stephenson has altered the whole face of the
world, while Davy is chiefly remembered as a meritorious and able
chemist; but at the time, Stephenson's claim to the invention met
with little courtesy from the great public of London, where a
meeting was held on purpose to denounce his right to the credit of
the invention. What the coal-owners and colliers of the North
Country thought about the matter was sufficiently shown by their
subscription of 1000 pounds, as a Stephenson testimonial fund.
With part of the money, a silver tankard was presented to the
deserving engine-wright, while the remainder of the sum was handed
over to him in ready cash. A very acceptable present it was, and
one which George Stephenson remembered with pride down to his dying
day. The Geordie lamp continues in use to the present moment in
the Tyneside collieries with excellent effect.

For some years more, Mr. Stephenson (he is now fairly entitled to
that respectable prefix) went on still further experimenting on the