Wednesday 15th. March 1854.
My dear Tom,
I find I have not a sheet of note paper in my possession so you must be content with a leaf of foolscap. Now that I have commenced I find that I have got nothing to say – you desire me to write to you however and I am willing to gratify that desire by even making letters though they should overlap no idea. My health is just as usual. I have had very little relaxation lately and find that I want some. I will labour lightly for the remainder of this week, as I can afford to do it for there happens to be a gap in my course at the London Institution1 which leaves me free to attend the Red Lions2 on Thursday. On the 7th I lectured at the R.I.3 on Vaporization. I had a mass of stuff in my head but not sufficient strength to manage it, and the consequence was that lecture, judged by my feelings was a miserable failure. Well on Thursday I lectured at the London.4 I felt fresh – used no notes and had them all clapping uproariously before I ended. Yesterday I lectured again at the R.I.5 my head was muddled but fortunately I had a good number of experiments which spared my logic to a considerable extent. I got on very well and the audience I believe thought so. Thus I oscillate – when in good health a lecture is mere amusement to me, when muddled and afflicted with headache it is a dreadful task.
Our educational lectures6 are almost determined upon the course will be opened by Whewell Master of Trinity:7 I should willingly back out of it myself, for it will cost me a great deal of labour. Besides the little experience I have had hardly furnished me with sufficient material. However like as a true portrait of any thing the features of a child, or even a pet lamb or a lapdog has something pleasing in it, I trust by adhering to the strict truth, and holding close on to the portraiture of my own mind that the picture thus drawn will on account of its fidelity possess interest for some. If the lectures are published, of which there is some probability, I know one at least who will feel an interest in what I have to say, and that one is yourself.
I have lately received several letters8 from a gentleman in Greenwich9 who is getting up a number of reading books for schools and who seems very anxious that I should be a contributor of his. He was recommended to apply to me by Playfair. The quanty he requires would be about equal to 80 pages of the Phil Mag. and for this he offers me £50. The money seems easily earned and I think I will undertake the work.10
An idea struck me a day or two ago which pleases me much, and the carrying out of which would be a source of profit and amusement to me – that is to write a series of letters on Natural Philosophy to boys.11 When I have more leisure the thing would be a pleasant pastime to me, and I know the letters might be written so as to make them widely popular. However this is as yet in the region of conjecture – don’t mention it to any body.
Your affectionate | John
Herr Hansen whom you saw in Gottingen is here at present. He has some notion of running down to see you. From Magnus’s note of introduction12 I judge him to be a superior young fellow.
RI MS JT/1/T/588
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/326
my course at the London Institution: the course of six lectures on Electricity and Magnetism Tyndall gave at the London Institution in 1854 (see letter 0865, n. 6).
the Red Lions: the Red Lions Club, founded by Edward Forbes, was an informal dinner club that met annually at the BAAS meetings beginning with the 1839 meeting in Birmingham. It was meant to provide a much less expensive and extravagant social space to the formal BAAS dinners (see letter 0975, n. 16), and would include only young men in their 20s and 30s as opposed to the mixed-sex and formal gatherings associated with the BAAS. After Forbes moved to London in 1844, the Red Lions club met regularly in London as well. Tyndall joined the club in 1850 and began dining with the club regularly after he moved to London in 1853 (see Journal, JT/2/13b/629, 654, 660, 692, 699, 705, and 714). It has been argued that the Red Lions Club was an important precursor to the influential X-Club (H. Ellis, Masculinity and Science in Britain, 1831–1918 [London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017], pp. 126–9). See also letters 0569, n. 11; 0622, n. 7; 0975, n. 16; and 1006, n. 5.
I lectured at the R.I.: this lecture was part of Tyndall’s course on Heat at the RI (see letter 0865, n. 6)
on Thursday I lectured at the London: part of Tyndall’s lectures on Electricity and Magnetism (see n. 1).
Yesterday I lectured again at the R.I.: see n. 3.
Our educational lectures: in the spring of 1854, the RI held a course of seven lectures on education. Tyndall delivered his lecture on 27 May, which was published as J. Tyndall, ‘On the Importance of the Study of Physics as a branch of Education for all Classes’, Lectures on Education (London: J. W. Parker & Son, 1854), pp. 171–211. See especially letter 0933 for Tyndall’s description of the event but also see letters 0906, n. 4; 0913, n. 4; 0924, n. 1; 0931; and 0932, n. 4.
Whewell Master of Trinity: William Whewell.
several letters: letters missing.
a gentleman in Greenwich: Edward Hughes (1819–59), an Irish teacher and Head Master of the Royal Naval Lower School at the Greenwich Hospital who ‘edited and compiled several elementary educational books, principally on geography and arithmetic’. His publishing activities caused him much financial and physical distress (‘Mr. Edward Hughes’, Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 19 [1860], pp., 190–1).
I will undertake the work: Tyndall’s series of lessons on natural philosophy appeared as J. Tyndall, ‘Natural Philosophy’, in E. Hughes (ed.), Reading Lessons: First Book (London: Longman, 1855), pp. 289–338; ‘Natural Philosophy’, in Hughes (ed.), Reading Lessons: Second Book (London: Longman, 1855), pp. 296–322; ‘Natural Philosophy’, in Hughes (ed.), Reading Lessons: Third Book (London: Longman, 1856), pp. 238–66; and ‘Natural Philosophy’, in Hughes (ed.), Reading Lessons: Fourth Book (1858), pp. 229–76.
Natural Philosophy to boys: see n. 10.
Magnus’s note of introduction: letter 0877.
Please cite as “Tyndall0900,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on