Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.21425

    Clanny safety lamp

    Date
    1816
    Creator
    Ambrose William Warren (1781 - 1856, British) , Engraver
    After
    Cornelius Varley (1781 - 1873, British) , Painter
    Object type
    Library reference
    31094
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (print): 204mm
    width (print): 120mm
    Subject
    Description
    Underground scene, showing a coal miner working under the light of a Clanny blast lamp, held by a second pitman behind him. The plate also contains a diagram of the safety lamp apparatus, including the lamp and bellows.

    The accompanying text notes that: ‘the bellows are placed under the right arm, like a bagpipe player, and, an elastic air tight tube fixed to their muzzle as an end, and the conducting tube at the other, which, when the bellows are urged, conveys the air for supporting the combustion of the candle…the lamp is to be suspended by a belt, on the left side’.

    Plate illustrating the set of correspondence relating to the award of a silver medal ‘to Dr. Clanny of Bishop-Wearmouth, near Newcastle, for his Safety Lamps…’, Transactions of the Society, instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce…[Transactions of the Royal Society of Arts] v.34, (1816) pp.121-127.

    Inscribed below: ’Doctor Clanny’s Safety Lamp. Drawn by Cornelius Varley. Engrav’d by A.W. Warren’.

    William Reid Clanny (1776-1850) Irish physician and inventor.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Ireland
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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