[Sept. 6th 1857]
My dear Dr Tyndall
Papa2 has asked me to write to you for him (as he is extremely busy just now) to ask you if you will fulfil your promise of coming here next week? His autumnal horticultural show3 is to come off on Wednesday the 16th and we should all be very glad if you could be present on the occasion. If you can come I think you will like to do so while we are still here. Willy4 will be enchanted, he is constantly asking about you. You will perceive by my knowing your address that I have seen your letter to Joseph.5 I think my thanks are due for it as much as his: for I was much interested in reading of your Swiss adventures6 and very glad to find you have returned home strong and well after your narrow escapes.7 When we meet I shall like to hear more about your stay in a place to which my thoughts often turn and especially about what you have been doing on the glaciers.
Joseph is at present at Kew8 but comes down here on the 19th to spend Sunday here, going on to Manchester9 the following day. On the 22d I hope to take my little ones home to Kew: by that time I trust I shall be quite strong and well and able to walk across Kew Green10 which I certainly could not do now.
I am sorry to say that Mamma11 has been so very unwell lately that her medical adviser has ordered her away from home and she is now staying with her brother12 near Ashford.13 This week she goes to Tunbridge Wells14 and shortly afterwards to St Leonards.15
Believe me | Ever yours very sincerely | Frances H. Hooker.
Hitcham, Suffolk.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/8/2551
LT Typescript Only
[6 September 1857]: the date is given by relation to letter 1428 and LT’s date on the typescript, which she probably took from the postmark.
Papa: John Henslow.
autumnal horticultural show: as part of his efforts to expand botanical education, Henslow oversaw an annual horticultural show at the Parish School in the village of Hitcham in county Suffolk, where he served as rector beginning in 1837. See P. Armstrong, The English Parson-Naturalist: A Companionship Between Science and Religion (Herefordshire, England: Gracewing Publishing, 2000), pp. 8–9.
Willy: William Hooker.
your letter to Joseph: letter 1428.
your Swiss adventures: Tyndall spent most of July and August 1857 exploring in the Alps with Thomas Hirst and Thomas Huxley.
your narrow escapes: in letter 1428, Tyndall described two moments of ‘peril’ during his climb of the Col du Géant, as well as a fall during his climb of Mont Blanc.
Kew: see letter 1328, n. 8.
Manchester: see letter 1311, n. 8.
Kew Green: an open lawn just outside of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew on the northeast side, where the Hookers lived at 49 Kew Green.
Mamma: Harriet Henslow (née Jenyns, 1797–1857), wife of Cambridge botanist John Henslow (1796–1861) and mother of Frances Hooker. She died on 20 November 1857.
her brother: Leonard Blomefield formerly Jenyns (1800–93), an English clergyman and naturalist who was asked to accompany Captain Robert Fitzroy aboard HMS Beagle. He declined, and the position was offered to Charles Darwin (ODNB).
Ashford: a town in Kent, England.
Tunbridge Wells: see letter 1422, n. 1.
St Leonards: St Leonards-on-Sea, a part of the town of Hastings, East Sussex, England.
Please cite as “Tyndall1432,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on