Queenwood | 23rd Feb. 1853.
My dear Sir
Accept my sincerest thanks for the trouble you have given yourself: I shall be most happy to respond to the invitation of the Managers1 of the Royal Institution.
To yourself or Professor Faraday I gladly leave the arrangement of the time, but allow me to make one remark: As you can readily conceive my duties here2 occupy me a good deal and leave me but little time for the preparation of lectures. I should like if possible that some portions of the lectures at least should be original matter, and the preparation of this costs considerable time. If therefore your thoughts be already nearly balanced as to whether you will have me immediately after Easter3 or 6 weeks afterwards, allow me to throw my petition into the scale of the latter decision. However I shall cheerfully abide by any arrangement you think proper to make.
My matter would I think range itself suitably under the title “On Air and Water”.
believe me dear Sir | most faithfully yours | John Tyndall
RI MS AD/03/A/02
the Managers: from May 1852 to April 1853, the acting managers were: William Wilberforce Bird (1784–1857), William Thomas Brande (1788–1866), B. Bond Cabbell (1782/33–1874), Henry John Codrington (1808–77), J. Griffith Cole (1805–65), George Dodd (1808–1881), Charles Fellows (1799–1860), Aaron Asher Goldsmid (1785–1860), William Robert Grove (1811–96), Lord Londesborough (1805–60), George Moore, Frederick Pollock (1783–1870), Lewis Powell John Webster, and C. Wheatstone (1802–75) (Roy. Inst. Proc., vol. 1, p. 190). Bence Jones had suggested that Tyndall give a series of lectures at the RI so as to qualify himself for the available professorship (see letter 0717).
my duties here: at Queenwood College.
Easter: Easter Sunday was 27 March.
Please cite as “Tyndall0720,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on