Faraday to Benjamin Vincent   17 June 1864

The Green | H. Court | Friday Evening | 17 June

Dear friend

I cannot keep my thoughts away from you. I feel very anxious about matters1[.] I & Jane will be at home to tea tomorrow Evening but I do not know at what time[.] I have to meet Lady H. de Walden2 about lighthouse matter in Blackfriars road at 4 o’clk & think I must be at home by or before 6 o’ck. If I could be useful I should be so glad.

How is Charles3 & Annie.

Do not mind me at all unless I can be useful but I hope matters will not be precipitated too rapidly or too much under the influence of excitement: I cannot help wishing the M. should go on.

Yours Most Affectionately | M. Faraday

Mr Vincent


Endorsement: 1864

1
Presumably a reference to Faraday laying down the Eldership of the London Sandemanian Church on 5 June 1864. Cantor (1991), 279.
2
Lucy Joan Howard de Walden, née Cavendish-Bentinck (1808–1899, CP). Married, in 1828, Charles Augustus Ellis, 6th Baron Howard de Walden (1799–1868, ODNB), Minister Plenipotentiary at Brussels. For her interest in electrifying the lighthouses at Portland Bill and Start Point, see ‘Brilliant Flashes’, Chambers’s J.,1867, pp.278-81, on p.279.
3
Charles Wilson Vincent (1837–1905, GRO). Son of Benjamin Vincent and Assistant Librarian at the Royal Institution, 1851–1857, and a student at the Royal College of Chemistry, 1854–1855. Later worked as an industrial chemist. Cantor (1991), 75-6.

Please cite as “Faraday4472,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 10 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday4472