Dear Dr Tyndall
Your letter1 to me this morning leads me to write to you a few days sooner than I otherwise should have done regarding LI & RI.
Mr Gassiots letter2 which you have received before this will make the first course clear. I need only say that if you want any apparatus if you ask Mr Faraday for the loan of it he will let you have it. It is a common request; and Newmans in Regent Street3 will lend you any thing they have. Give the one lecture on Heat. It will tell. But regarding the future. It is highly probable that you will be offered a professorship at the London Institution with about £200 per annum.
Last night I shewed Mr Barlow how desirable it was that you should give a course at the R.I. this year so as to qualify you for the Professorship at the Royal Institution4 & we settled that he & I should speak to Mr Faraday. Mr Barlow being most willing that you should give a course of four lectures after Easter, about May. I need not tell you that Mr. Faraday & not Mr B or Dr G5 influence the managers. For another week I shall be unable to tell Mr Faraday why it is most desirable that another candidate for the Professorship should if possible be obtained. I can now only say that it is not likely that the College of Chemistry Council will let Dr Hofmann6 accept the appointment. I have little doubt that Mr Faraday will agree & be most anxious that you should lecture with a view to qualifying yourself for the Professorship at the Royal Institution. Whether you could also hold the London Institution place is very doubtful. It will be a matter for your consideration which place you would like best. The pay at the RI is 150 & 2/3 of lecture fees making perhaps 100 more.7 The professorship at the RI is a Professorship of Chemistry. Lectures on Heat would do quite as well as lectures on Chemistry, but a course of chemical lectures in future years would not trouble you. I had some conversation with Mr Huxley about all these proposals last night & if you like to consult him, do so.8 You shall hear from me again when I have anything to say
Believe me yrs most truly | H Bence Jones
Feb 19. 1853
RI MS JT/1/J/41
your letter: letter missing but presumably in response to letter 0715. In his journal, Tyndall discussed the various offers he received and his delight and ambivalence regarding which to accept or undertake (Journal, 20 and 22 February, JT/2/13b/601).
Mr Gassiots letter: letter missing but it was from John Peter Gassiot who conducted research into electricity and was an associate of William Grove. Gassiot was a manager of the LI and a contact of Tyndall’s regarding the professorship on offer there.
Newmans in Regent Street: refers to a shop located at 122 Regent Street, London from 1827 to 1860, run by John Newman.
Professorship at the Royal Institution: in order to qualify for a professorship at the RI, it was necessary to have already given a course of lectures there. (See also letter 0721).
Mr B or Dr G: Barlow and Gassiot.
College of Chemistry Council … Dr Hofmann: the Royal College of Chemistry was founded in 1845 on Oxford Street in London in order to teach practical chemistry. August Wilhem Hofmann was its first director.
150 … 100 more: the salary for the professorship at the RI was £150 per year plus two thirds of the lecture fees, amounting to about £100 additional income.
Mr. Huxley … consult him, do so: Tyndall consulted with Huxley about the positions in letters 0719 and 0721.
Please cite as “Tyndall0717,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on