Thursday
My dear Father
According to my promise. Since I wrote my last1 I have been in search of lodgings. I have travelled the most of Preston and I shall now tell you how things stand. In taking lodgings heretofore I had generally four persons to please – myself and three more – by collecting thus together we have always been able to procure lodgings pretty cheap; that is, by the time the amount was divided it seldom amounted to more than 3s a week for each. But now you see I am thrown out of my usual course, and lodgings will be extremely expensive I was in a certain place last night and the good woman asked me 12/- a week for two rooms, and declared that she had got that sum before now for them. Preston is a manufacturing town, the greater part of it is thickly studded with factories, I would not like to bring Emma into the vicinity of those2 as the air is generally impregnated with the smoke thrown out from their enormous chimneys.3 I shall now let you know one course I have thought of adopting. There is a man lodging with me, Evans, and Latimer at present, who joined us about two months ago on account of his wife going on a visit to Ireland. She is an exceedingly nice woman, I have been speaking to him about joining together and taking lodgings so that we all could sit together at the same table and thus Emma would have a companion during my absence. Mr Timms however could give me no decided answer until he had consulted Mrs T.4 He writes to day on the matter. Now I want your answer. Mrs T. will be coming over in a fortnight. In the event of her agreeing with what I have proposed, would you think it too long to wait? or shall I take lodgings on the spot for Emma and myself?5 Could she not go out to Ballybromwell6 in the interim? Send me an explicit answer to this. I’m so bewildered that I scarcely know what I’m about
Your affectionate son | John Tyndall.
RI MS JT 1/10/3293
LT Transcript Only
my last: probably letter 0220.
I would not like to bring Emma into the vicinity of those: The suggestion that Tyndall’s sister Emma might visit him in Preston was first discussed in letter 0220.
the air is generally impregnated … enormous chimneys: Emma seems to have been less perturbed by the industrial landscape than her brother, telling her father, on 16 August 1843, that ‘Preston is a nice clean town … the suburbs … are beautiful’ (RI MS JT 1/10/3294), and later observing of Tyndall ‘He is very much attached to the country, he hates the hum and bustle of the town, and would fain spend his life amid green fields and waving woods’ (22 August 1843 RI MS JT 1/10/3295).
Mr Timms … Mrs T: Emma was possibly referring to Mrs Timms when she told her father, on 22 August 1843, that ‘John was fortunate enough to procure very nice lodgings for me. My hostess has some friends in town … I am acquainted with none but persons of respectability … After tea last night I was handed a glass of primrose wine made by my kind hostess. The English excel in making such things’.
would you think … for Emma and myself?: Emma’s own letters to her father indicate that her ‘safe arrival in Preston’ occurred before 16 August, suggesting that, at least initially, Tyndall took the option of taking lodgings just for themselves.
Ballybromwell: see letter 0121, n. 4.
Please cite as “Tyndall0225,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0225