During my Christmas visit to Cornwall I was interested to see the letter by Roy Williams in your December 22 issue, under the heading 'man of the millennium'.
Mr Williams proposes Richard Trevithick as the Cornish Man of the Millennium, and as an outsider I fell to wondering which other great men and women from your lovely county should also be considered.
I ask your readers to consider for this honour Sir Humphrey Davy, Bart. (1778-1829), a native of Penzance, who went to school in Truro. He worked full time at the Royal Institution in London from 1801 - 1813, and it was there for most of his great discoveries were made. He then became President of the Royal Society.
Davy is probably best known for developing the Miners' Safety Lamp. (He refused to patent it so as not to restrict its use), but he also developed the study of electricity and discovered and isolated eight chemical elements - sodium, potassium, calcium, barium, strontium, magnesium, boron and iodine.
He was a gifted orator and poet; a genius.
JOHN STEVENSON
(Dr JH Stevenson)
Herts.