Preston, | Tuesday night
My dear Father
I am just after returning from hearing a lecture by the Curate of the parish church of Preston in the lecture room of the Mechanic’s Institution1 of which I have been a member these three months. We have had a very interesting course of lectures during the winter – one every week.2 There are much greater facilities here for the acquirement of information than in Ireland,3 and as far as my time and circumstances permit I avail myself of all.
Yours4 together with the ‘Weekly Message’5 were received yesterday. You were right in your conjectures as to whence it came. Poor Wright’s hand is well known to me. I was surprised and grieved to hear of his father’s death. You never mentioned it to me before. I cannot say how Joe Payne is. I’m not inclined however to go the whole way with you in believing the report of his sickness to be a scheme. You put me in mind to refund your two pence which you paid on the receipt of the American paper.6 Did you not read it? If so was not that, in part at least, compensation and the remaining part of the debt, if any remains, I intend to liquidate by permitting you to read the Illustrated London News.7 I send you inside this paper two penny publications,8 they afford you a specimen of a class of papers with which this part of the country teems. They have a most astonishing effect on the public mind. Some Statesman has remarked that if he were allowed to write the songs of the people he cared not who made laws for them.9 From a conviction similar to this has sprung a locust crowd of such publications as these I now send you. You will easily recognise the hooked noses of Peel and Wellington10 among the group of heads, the ‘gent’ at the tail is Harry Brougham.11 I suppose you have read about the division that has taken place between him and the ‘League’.12 If so you will immediately comprehend his position. I run the risk of losing my paper in sending these. I don’t think they are allowed to go post free.13 If they be found out I dare say postage will be charged for them. If so don’t pay it. When you read the paper just enclose it as follows:—
Mr Haughton14
Main Street
Cincinnati
United States.
for Mr Wright
You will have to pay 2d for this, but I solemnly assure you that I’ll refund it to you perhaps in my next letter – if I had stamps to that amount by me at present I’d send them – You ask me whether you may expect to see me in May, you say that a trip to Ireland would not be much more expensive than the one I took from Cork. Why man! my exchequer was nearly annihilated by the shock it received from that trip. Now I’ll make a bargain with you – how many pairs of boots and shoes will you give me if I go? – There’s a chance for you. However joking apart its very probable that I will take a trip over to you in the course of the summer. I must make some calculations on the matter, its very likely the result of them will be favourable to my going.
Your affectionate son | John.
RI MS JT 1/10/3285–6
LT Transcript Only
a lecture by the Curate … the Mechanic’s Institution: This was a lecture on ‘Mental Philosophy’ given on Tuesday 14 February 1843 by the Reverend J. P. Simpson (‘Institution’, Preston Chronicle, 18 February 1843, p. [3]). The parish church of Preston was St John the Evangelist, in Church Street; the Mechanics’ Institution, also known as the Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, was founded in 1828 in a small two-story building on Cannon Street, which contained a library, museum and lecture room. It moved into much grander, neo-classical premises on Avenham Walk in 1850.
We have had a very interesting … one every week: Tyndall later recalled: ‘In 1842, and thereabouts, it was my privilege to be a member of the Preston Mechanics’ Institution – to attend its lectures and make use of its library. A learned and accomplished clergyman, named, if I remember aright, John Clay, chaplain of the House of Correction, lectured from time to time on mechanics. A fine earnest old man, named, I think, Moses Holden, lectured on astronomy, while other lecturers took up the subjects of general physics, chemistry, botany, and physiology’ (‘Address Delivered at the Birkbeck Institution on October 22, 1884’, New Fragments (London: Longmans, Green, 1892), pp. 224–47, on p. 226).
much greater facilities here for the acquirement of information than in Ireland: The educational reformer J. W. Hudson observed that ‘In Ireland, Mechanics’ Institutions have never prospered for any lengthened period, owing to a variety of causes, not the least of which has been a strong political and sectarian animosity that has paralised committees and alienated members’, while Irish ‘reading-rooms …from the want of books and magazines …became mere gossiping rooms and were given up’ (The History of Adult Education (London: Longmans, Green, 1851), pp. 213–14).
Yours: letter missing.
‘Weekly Message’: probably the Dollar Weekly Message, a newspaper published in Cincinnati, Ohio between 1841 and 1843 (Library of Congress http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042260/). William Wright, who sent the newspaper, had emigrated to America in March 1841 and settled in Cincinnati.
two pence which you paid on the receipt of the American paper: While the Post Office (Duties) Act of 1840 decreed that printed British newspapers could be sent for free within the United Kingdom, foreign printed newspapers brought into the country by packet boats or private ships were liable to a charge of 2d. (3 & 4 vict c 96. XLII).
the Illustrated London News: a weekly newspaper, founded in 1842 and costing 6d., that used wood engravings to, for the first time, provide graphic and realistic illustrations of current news events.
penny publications: From the early 1830s, and especially following the success of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge’s Penny Magazine, the word ‘Penny’ was used regularly in the titles of newspapers and periodicals intended for a mass reading audience, which, collectively, were known as penny papers or the penny press.
Some Statesman … write the songs of the people he cared not who made laws for them: The Scottish politician Andrew Fletcher (1653–1716) observed that ‘a very wise man … believed if a man were permitted to make all the Ballads he need not care who should make the Laws of a Nation’ (An Account of a Conversation Concerning a Right Regulation of Governments (Edinburgh: n.p., 1704), p. 10).
Wellington: see letter 0146, n. 11. Although celebrated for his military prowess, and continuing as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, the so-called ‘Iron Duke’, who was Prime Minister from 1828 to 1830 and again in 1834, provoked radical ire as a reactionary opponent of political reform.
Harry Brougham: Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868), a Scottish lawyer and Whig politician who served as Lord Chancellor between 1830 and 1834.
the division that has taken place between him and the ‘League’: Although Brougham was in favour of free trade and the repeal of the Corn Laws, his relations with the Anti-Corn Law League had become increasingly strained. Finally, in a debate on the Corn Laws in the House of Lords on 9 February 1843, Brougham stated ‘I cannot … suffer the mention of the Anti-Corn-law League, and its proceedings … without expressing my entire and hearty concurrence with the disapprobation expressed at many of the proceedings of that body … I desire to express my most pointed disapproval of the means taken by some of the persons connected with that association’ (Hansard, HL Deb 9 February 1843, vol. 66, c. 292).
I don’t think they are allowed to go post free: see n. 6.
Mr Haughton: Richard Haughton, William Wright’s employer; see letter 0146.
Please cite as “Tyndall0187,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 20 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0187