Faraday to Thomas Romney Robinson   26 October 18631

Royal Institution | 26 Oct. 1863

My dear Dr Robinson

Only a few days have passed since I saw in the Athenaeum, Sept 5 / 63 page 3062, what is called your report to the British Association on Fog signals3; in it I am spoken of as one known to be unfavorable to the objects of your memorial 4. Imagine my astonishment. That you may do so, I send you a copy of the only paper5 I have written in relation to the subject. Whether this letter was sent verbatim to the Board of Trade I do not know6. I do not see how you can put me right before the Association & the public save by printing my letter with your memorial & the report of it wherever they may appear. I do not know whether I have the right of giving it to you but I am in hopes you will apply for it to the President of the Board of Trade7 & that he will give you leave to use it.

Ever My dear Robinson | Yours most truly | M. Faraday

What can your fellow Committee men8 think of me? Please shew them this letter.

1
Not in Faraday’s hand apart from the signature.
2
This was a report of the meeting of the Mathematical and Physical Science Section of the British Association in Newcastle. Athenaeum, 5 September 1863, p.306.
3
Published as Robinson (1863) which retained the reference to Faraday.
4
Robinson to Milner-Gibson, 22 May 1863, in Robinson (1863), 105-10.
6
Robinson (1863), 110 says that it was sent to the Board of Trade.
7
Thomas Milner-Gibson.
8
The committee comprised Robinson, John Hall Gladstone, Charles Wheatstone and the Professor of Physics at the Roman Catholic University, Dublin, from 1855 to 1874, Henry Hennessy (1826–1901, ODNB).

Bibliography

ROBINSON, Thomas Romney (1863): “Report of the Committee on Fog Signals”, Rep. Brit. Ass., pp. 105-110.

Please cite as “Faraday4386,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday4386