Ɛpsilon

William Crawford Williamson to Faraday   23 December 18531

Owens College | Manchester Dec. 23 / 53

Dear Sir

Dr Cumming2 of London has just been lecturing here and as I understand from several parties, he made a public statement that you had withdrawn your letter explanatory of Table turning as being insufficient to account for the phenomena 3.

Since we have been in the habit of quoting your apparently conclusive experiments, in confirmation of our own notions respecting this absurdity, such a statement coming from such a quarter, seemed to require, either contradiction or substantiation; and I have taken the liberty of addressing you in a direct manner, in preference to adopting any more round-about mode of ascertaining the truth; fully convinced that your philosopher spirit will acquit me of any impertiency in doing so.

The advocates & practitioners of this extraordinary delusion are still so numerous, and the mischief they are likely to do, judging by what has occurred in America, so fearful, that it behoves every conscientious man to lift up his voice against them in a solemn manner. The publication of your letter effectually silenced them in this neighbourhood - but the statement alleged to have been made by Dr Cumming will go far to recussitate what we had hoped was now a caput mortuum4.

I must apologise for troubling you with this matter. I have not had the opportunity of seeing my colleague, Principal Scott5 - this day or two, or I would have asked him to undertake the enquiry; being I believe a personal acquaintance, &, consequently, one from whom it would have come with greater propriety.

I remain Dear Sir | Very Truly Yours | William C. Williamson

To Professor Faraday

1
William Crawford Williamson (1816-1895, DNB). Professor of Natural History, Anatomy and Physiology at Owens College, Manchester, 1851-1892.
2
John Cumming (1807-1881, DNB). Minister at the Scottish National Church in Covent Garden, 1832-1879.
3
Cumming was advertised as delivering a lecture entitled “The signs of the times” at the Scotch Church, Manchester on 19 December 1853, Manchester Guardian,17 December 1853, p.1, col. a. For a text of the a lecture of the same title, delivered in London on 13 December 1853, see Cumming (1854). The reference to Faraday is on pp.179-80.
4
“A dead head”. That is the residuum left by a process of chemical analysis.
5
Alexander John Scott (1805-1866, DNB). Principal of Owen’s College, Manchester, 1851-1857.

Bibliography

CUMMING, John (1854): "The Signs of the Times" in Anon (1854), 157-96.

Please cite as “Faraday2769,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2769