Feb1856
My dear Tom
Your note1 has just reached me. Thank you for it sincerely. I will write to you by tomorrow’s post regarding my friend Eddy Wynne. He will go to Gale’s2 if you cannot with perfect convenience take him in. I have him to dine with me today and we will come to a decision. I think he will be with you on Monday – he is a boy who when he sees a thing is to be done will do it promptly. It would be easy to please him in every respect. When he went into his uncle's establishment3 he seized his file and worked as a workman. That is the spirit of the lad in all he does. In fact he is one just fit to enact Abernethy's doctrine of necessary4 – that is to live on 6 pence a day and earn it himself. He is I should say between 16 & 17 years of age.5
Your note is full of sweetness to me – I wish I had a little time to write to you on that subject. I had a most interesting conversation with my friend Huxley on the point a few days ago – he enlightened me much and I have something to communicate to you on the matter. Good bye my dear Tom till tomorrow
ever your affectionate | John | Friday
RI MS JT/1/T/868
Your note: letter missing but probably written by Hirst on 21 February.
Gale’s: not firmly identified from Census data, but possibly Sarah Gale, the widowed innkeeper of the Tally Ho in Broughton. Hirst had experienced disciplinary problems with a senior boy named Gale in 1854 and this was possibly her son, George Gale (b. 1836).
his uncle’s establishment: John Scott Russell’s shipbuilding yard.
Abernethy’s doctrine of necessary: The Scottish surgeon John Abernethy (1764 –1831) is reputed to have told a patient suffering from gout that the cure was ‘live on sixpence a day – and earn it’. The saying was later used by George Bernard Shaw in his 1906 drama, The Doctor’s Dilemma (London: Constable, 1911).
17 years of age: Edward Wynne was, in fact, eighteen.
Please cite as “Tyndall1198,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on