Monday night.
My dear Tom,
I ought to have written to you today. You would then receive my letter tomorrow morning, but I have been hard at work in the laboratory till 7 ½ oC[lock] preparing for my last lecture2 – which thank the gods will be given tomorrow. The said gods are good to me – for two days ago I found a pretty thing Connected with the subject of tomorrows lecture which I know will interest the audience and enable me to bid them a graceful goodbye. You have I suppose by this time received the tube for Savart’s experiments3 – at least I gave directions last week to have it sent to you – I must endeavour to run down to you in time for the Concert4 – For I should feel a kind of blank in my brain if I permitted the boys to scatter without seeing them. I must if need be come up again to Hodgson’s lecture5 – We had an excellent lecture on Saturday last on physiology.6 The man talked without notes for an hour and a quarter and I believe delighted his audience. The reporter of the morning Chronicle7 made use in his report8 of my lecture9 attack Latham the ethnologist,10 and Latham writes to me today sending me his lecture11 in order to permit me to modify my statement – My disclaimer however fortunately appears in the Chronicle on Thursday last.12 I thought you would have seen the Chronicle for otherwise I should have been tempted to send it to you – though the matter is really not worth the reading. Whewells and Faraday’s lectures13 are already published. I received copies of them today from the publishers – they appear singly and are well worth reading. I spend tomorrow evening with the eldest son14 of Chief Baron Pollock15 – a man I like well and who was drawn towards me by a kind of natural gravitation. Now I have discharged all my gossip – I will go down to you on Saturday in all probability. Frankland gave us a lecture on Friday last16 – goodbye. How is Derichlet’s17 name spelt?
Affectionatly John
RI MS JT/1/T/590
5 June 1854: although Hirst wrote ‘June 6’ at the top of this letter, suggesting when he had received it, the letter must have been written on Monday, 5 June. Tyndall indicated that he wrote the letter on Monday evening, the evening before his lecture. Tyndall delivered his final lecture on 6 June (Journal, 6 June 1854, JT/2/13b/677).
my last lecture: Tyndall had commenced a series of seven lectures on ‘Ebullition, Combustion, and other Phenomena of Heat’ at the RI on 25 April 1854 (‘General Monthly Meeting’, Roy. Inst. Proc., vol. 1, p. 420). This was the concluding lecture (see n. 1).
tube for Savart’s experiments: likely refers to an experiment used to demonstrate the Biot-Savart law relating to the magnetic field generated by an electric current, or ‘that the magnetic flux density near a long straight conductor is inversely proportional to distance from the conductor and directly proportional to the current in the conductor’ (OED). This law was first identified by Félix Savart (1791–1841) and Jean–Baptiste Biot (1774–1862).
the Concert: a concert at Queenwood College that took place on 12 June (H. Smithers, ‘Miscellaneous’, Queenwood Observer 2:4 [31 May 1854], pp. 25–32, on p. 26). Tyndall noted his attendance in his journal stating, ‘a large number of people were present, it was very successful’ (Journal, JT/2/13b/677).
Hodgson’s lecture: W. B. Hodgson gave the seventh and final RI Lecture on Education on 10 June, ‘On the Importance of the Study of Economic Science’, in Lectures on Education (London: Parker, 1854), pp. 261–316.
an excellent lecture … on physiology: reference to the sixth RI Lecture on Education on 3 June by James Paget, ‘On the Importance of the Study of Physiology’, in Lectures on Education (London: Parker, 1854), pp. 215–60. Sir James Paget (1814–99), first baronet, was a surgeon notable as a founder of medical pathology (ODNB). At this time, he was assistant surgeon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and had recently published Lectures in Surgical Pathology, Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1853). He was made a baronet in 1871 (ODNB).
The reporter of the morning Chronicle: not identified. The Morning Chronicle was founded in 1770 by William Woodfall (1739–1805) under the name The Morning Chronicle and Daily Advertiser (‘The Morning Chronicle’, in L. Brake and M. Demoor [eds.], Dictionary of Nineteenth-century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland [Gent and London: Academia Press and The British Library], pp. 426–7).
his report: see ‘Royal Institution’, The Morning Chronicle, 29 May 1854, p. 5. For Tyndall’s response to the report see n. 13.
my lecture: Tyndall’s installment in the series of lectures on education presented at the RI, although Latham was not explicitly mentioned in the lecture (see letters 0900, n. 6 and 0933); also see n. 12.
attack Latham the ethnologist: Robert Gordon Latham (1812–88), an English ethnologist, physician, and philologist notable for his works The English Language (1841) and The Natural History of the Varieties of Man (1850) (ODNB). Tyndall’s response to the report included a quote from the initial report stating, ‘In conclusion, Dr. Tyndall expressed himself warmly relative to the slighting manner in which physical science had been spoken of by Dr. Latham, in the third lecture of the course’ (‘Mr. Tyndall’s Lecture At The Royal Institution’, The Morning Chronicle, 1 June 1854, p. 3).
his lecture: Latham’s lecture on education, which was part of the series on education presented at the RI (see n. 10). See R. G. Latham, ‘On the Importance of the Study of Language as a branch of Education for all Classes’, Lectures on Education (London: J. W. Parker & Son, 1854), pp. 91–113.
My disclaimer … Thursday last: in his letter to The Morning Chronicle, Tyndall emphasized that he had neither knowledge of, or thought about, Latham while conducting his own lecture. Nor had Tyndall referred to Latham in his own lecture and he pointed readers to the soon to be published copy of his own lecture for further clarification on his position on the physical sciences (‘Mr. Tyndall’s Lecture At The Royal Institution’, The Morning Chronicle, 1 June 1854, p. 3).
Whewells and Faraday’s lectures: Whewell’s and Faraday’s lectures on education. See W. Whewell, ‘Influence of the History of Science Upon Intellectual Education’ and M. Faraday, ‘Observations on Mental Education’, Lectures on Education (London: J. W. Parker & Son, 1854), pp. 3–36; 39–88. The lectures also must have been published as single pamphlets.
the eldest son: Sir Frederick Pollock (1845–1937), third baronet. Pollock was an English jurist and well-known legal author (OED).
Chief Baron Pollock: Sir William Frederick Pollock (1815–88), second baronet and an English lawyer and author.
Frankland gave us a lecture on Friday last: see E. Frankland, ‘On the dependence of the Chemical properties of Compounds upon the Electrical character of their constituents’, Roy. Inst. Proc., vol. 1, pp. 451–4.
Derichlet’s: misspelling of Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet.
Please cite as “Tyndall0935,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on