Charles Barry to Faraday   6 July 1858

Private | <qr>Old Palace Yard | 6 July 1858

My dear Faraday

Mr. Gurney1 the ventilator and worthy successor of Dr. Reid2 at the New Palace at Westminster who boasts of not having looked into a chemical book for the last 25 years has assumed with reference to my two great towers at the New Palace, that the fumes of a coke fire at the bottom of a shaft in such of them will not affect either iron, or gold at the top of these towers although the said fumes which are there most suffocating are in constant contact with the metals to which I have alluded and although they are already in a state of oxidation & decomposition I have ventured to take exception to Mr. Gurneys dictum on this subject which he is nevertheless purposed to defend - may I ask of you whether he or I am right?3

Most truly yours | Charles Barry

1
Goldsworthy Gurney (1793-1875, ODNB). Inventor.
2
David Boswell Reid (1805-1863, ODNB). Worked on the ventilation and lighting of the new Houses of Parliament, 1836-1845.
3
For the difficult relations between Barry and Gurney over the ventilation and lighting of the new Houses of Parliament, see Porter (1998), 168-88.

Bibliography

PORTER, Dale H. (1998): The Life and Times of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney: Gentleman Scientist and Inventor 1793-1875, Bethlehem.

Please cite as “Faraday3473,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday3473