Olveston | 28 Oct. 1856.
My dear Sir,
The Rev. Stephen Hawtrey1 who is the Mathematical Master at Eton2 is desirous to consult you on a course of instruction in Experimental science for the Etonians, which he purposes should extend over a period of two or three years. I have taken the liberty of giving him a letter of introduction to you; being convinced that the subject will commend itself to you as of no slight importance to the interests of education and of science.
Will you now permit me to consult you on a private matter. I have two boys3 who are at a private classical school with a view to their being sent to a public school.
One of them (the elder) is acquitting himself well in Latin and Greek which appear to be tolerably well adapted to the education of his mind.
Of the younger (not quite 11 years old) his master reports that he is singularly without a talent for the acquisition of language, having no verbal memory – showing in such matters a vagrant mind, &c. &c. He reports moreover (what I also know) that he is far from being without intelligence in common things and is very clever in Arithmetic. His is in short (I doubt not) a mind of that class which cannot be educated by means of language but is capable of being educated through science of some kind or other. Now can you recommend me a school where this would be done; and where he would have for his associates boys of his own class? Does Earlswood4 – the name I think of a school in Hampshire which you are acquainted with – satisfy these conditions?
Yours truly | H. Moseley.
RI MS JT/3/899
LT Transcript Only
The Rev. Stephen Hawtrey: Stephen Hawtrey (1808–86), a cousin of Edward Craven Hawtrey, the Provost (headmaster) of Eton College (1834–42), had been appointed Mathematical Master there before 1845. He combined this position with the headmastership of St Mark’s School, Windsor and serving as Vicar of Trinity Church, Windsor. Tyndall subsequently gave a number of lectures at Eton, but experienced disciplinary problems (RI MS JT/2/13c/1035–7).
Eton: Eton College was founded by Henry VI in 1440 as a boys’ boarding school at Eton, a village close to Windsor, in Berkshire.
I have two boys: Moseley’s sons were Henry Nottidge Moseley (1844–91) who became a distinguished naturalist after education at Harrow School and Exeter College, Oxford. His son, Henry Moseley (1887– 1914) became a distinguished physicist. The other son has not been identified and was not recorded in either the 1851 or 1861 Census.
Earlswood: Moseley meant Queenwood College. Given Tyndall’s reservations about the headmaster, George Edmondson, he is unlikely to have recommended it as suited to the younger son.
Please cite as “Tyndall1291,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on