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Davies Gilbert (born Davies Giddy) PRS (6 March 1767 – 24 December 1839) was a British engineer, author, and politician. He was elected to the Royal Society on 17 November 1791 and served as President of the Royal Society from 1827 to 1830. ==Biography== Davies Giddy was born on 6 March 1767, the second child of three, to the Reverend Edward Giddy, curate of St Erth church, and Catherine Davies, daughter of Henry Davies of Tredrea, St Erth. The first child, also Davies by forename, had died within 24 hours of birth in 1766, and the third child, daughter Mary Phillipa Davies Giddy (aka Philippa) was born in 1769.〔Cornwall On-line Parish Clerks〕 The Giddy family moved into Penzance, living on Chapel Street in 1775, until Giddy's mother Catherine inherited the family home of Tredrea back in St Erth. By 1780 the family returned to St Erth, and Davies was taught by his father, alongside his sister Philippa. Davies Giddy would later adopt Gilbert as his surname, the maiden name of his wife, the agronomist Mary Ann Gilbert, who he married at Easter of 1808.〔 Davies was educated first at Penzance Grammar School and then by his father, and by Rev Malachy Hitchens,〔''West Briton'', 3 January 1840 "Death of Davies Gilbert Esq." – quotation:"His preliminary education was conducted at home; and at a very early age he contracted an intimacy, which continued until death, with the Rev. Malachy Hitchens, vicar of St. Hilary, a gentleman of high and well-deserved celebrity as a mathematician and astronomer, and as editor of the Nautical almanack."〕 the mathematical astronomer. At the age of 17, at the recommendation of Hitchins, he was sent to Bristol to join the Mathematical Academy of Benjamin Donne where he remained for three years. His sister Phillipa simultaneously finished her own schooling with the famous bluestocking Hannah More.〔A C Todd Beyond the Blaze〕 He went up to Pembroke College, Oxford in 1786, whence he graduated with a M.A. on 29 June 1789.〔 Davies was High Sheriff of Cornwall from 1792 to 1793. He served in the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Helston in Cornwall from 1804 to 1806 and for Bodmin from 1806 to 1832. Giddy was an intimate friend of physician Thomas Beddoes, had attended Beddoes' lectures in Oxford when the latter had become University Reader in Chemistry in 1788 and had been a confidant of Beddoes in his plans for the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol. He noticed and encouraged Humphry Davy and convinced Beddoes that Davy was the man to work in the laboratory at the Institution. The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' article says of him: "Gilbert's importance to the development of science in the early nineteenth century lay in his faith that science provided the best means to tackle practical problems and in his facility as a parliamentary promoter of scientific ventures." His mathematical skills were sought by such early engineering pioneers as Jonathan Hornblower, Richard Trevithick and Thomas Telford.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Cornish characters and strange events )〕 He also had a great interest for the history and culture of Cornwall. For instance, he removed a Celtic cross from near Truro, on the Redruth Road (where it had found new use as a gatepost), and took it to a churchyard in his new home of Eastbourne.〔(Website of Eastbourne Pagan Circle accessed 28 October 2006 )〕 When asked why he carried off a Cornish Cross and re-erected it in Eastbourne by the Rev. Canon Hockin, of Phillack, Mr. Davies replied, ''It was to show the poor, ignorant folk that there was something bigger in the world than a flint!''. He assembled and published ''A Parochial History of Cornwall'' and collected and published a number of Cornish Carols.〔''A Parochial History of Cornwall'' : This book provides the first written evidence of the use of Flag of Saint Piran . It is available via Google Books〕〔(hymns and Carols for Christmas website )〕 He edited for publication a Cornish Language poem about the Passion: ''Passyon agan Arluth'', as ''Mount Calvary'' (1826).〔 〕 He was elected to the Society of Antiquaries in 1820.〔 Gilbert was the President of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall from its foundation in 1814 until his death. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterG.pdf )〕 Davies Gilbert was opposed to mass education during his time in parliament. When the Parochial Schools Bill of 1807 was debated in the Commons, Tory MP Davies Gilbert warned the House that:
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