Queenwood Tuesday evg.
My dear Mrs. Pollock
Since I came here I have been endeavouring to throw my observations into an organic shape and the work has proceeded so slowly as to prevent me from returning to London as early as I intended. Tomorrow however I shall make my escape—or rather I shall deliberately put on town fetters2 in exchange for the gentler chain which has tied me to my duties here. On Saturday I hope to have the pleasure of joining you and of inspecting with my own eyes the perils and dangers to which Walter3 so rashly exposes himself in his excursions. I have no Bradshaw4—, otherwise I would name the train; but in the hope that you perpetuate at Tunbridge Wells5 the duplex tea6 of Montagu Square,7 I shall aim to be with you between 6 and 7 oClock.
Most sincerely yours | J. Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/T/1193
RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/1926
[8 September 1857]: the date is given based on relation to letter 1430, in which Juliet Pollock invited Tyndall to come to Tunbridge Wells. His journal shows he returned to London from Queenwood on 9 September 1857, and in his entry for 12 September, he wrote, ‘To Tunbridge Wells and soon found myself at home with my friend Pollock, his excellent wife and little Walter at 2 Dorset Place’ (Journal, JT/2/13c/1032–3).
fetters: a chain or shackle for the feet of a human being or animal (OED).
Walter: Walter Pollock.
Bradshaw: colloquial designation of ‘Bradshaw’s Railway Guide’, a time-table of all railway trains running in Great Britain (OED).
Tunbridge Wells: see letter 1423, n. 1.
duplex tea: likely a reference to tea or high-tea, the term for the evening meal often associated with the working class.
Montagu Square: a square in Marylebone, London, where the Pollocks had their primary residence at no. 59.
Please cite as “Tyndall1433,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on