During his career, Davy discovered phosgene, silicon tetrafluoride, and concluded that chlorine was an element.

[1] He assisted his older brother Humphry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain for two years before heading to Edinburgh University, where he earned his degree in medicine in 1814.

After being posted to a number of British colonies, including India and Ceylon, he was elevated to the rank of Inspector General of Army Hospitals in the West Indies in 1862, based around Barbados.

In 1842 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, his proposer being Thomas Charles Hope.

[4] Davy returned to England, and moved to the Lake District where he died at Lasketh-How near Ambleside on 24 January 1868.