Friday, 19 Feb 1858
My dear Mr. Faraday,
Will you grant me your patience while I endeavour to lay before you a few reflections which arise out of my recent conversation with you regarding the shortening of my course of lectures.1 At the time of our conversation I was so deeply sensible of the kindly feelings which, as you informed me, the Managers2 had manifested towards me, that I thought of nothing else. Perhaps I now labour under a misconception, and if so, I am sure that you will have the goodness to set me right.
The matter, as I understand it, stands thus:—I have agreed to perform certain duties, for which the Institution grants me a certain annual salary, and which the Managers have the right to require of me. My friend Dr. Bence Jones is to give his opinion that my health is impaired by these duties, and the Managers, acting on his report, propose to continue my salary at its present amount, while they diminish the quantity of work which I have to perform.
I feel that your own natural disposition enables you to solve mine so thoroughly that I have no fear of your misunderstanding what I have to say upon this proposition. I ask you, therefore, would you not in my place consider that such an arrangement would place you in a doubtful position as regards the Institution? The acceptance of the change, under the proposed conditions, would, I fear, materially hamper a feeling of independence which, throughout my life, I have endeavoured to maintain. If an alteration is to be made at all I certainly should not like to see it made on the grounds of my being unable to discharge the duties which the Managers regard as merely a reasonable return for the terms which they grant me.
Will you in your kindness permit me to draw your attention to the exact circumstances connected with my joining the Institution?3 I had three offers before me at the time. The R.I. offered me £200 a year for 19 lectures. Another institution4 would have given me the same sum, an assistant, a laboratory and funds for experiments, for 6 lectures annually; and I was afterwards given to understand that this offer would be made still better. —At the conclusion of one of my first lectures at the R.I. a gentleman5 connected officially with a Government establishment,6 who had heard of my probable appointment at the R.I. took me aside and advised me strongly not to accept the professorship, telling me that I should regret it if I did, for another and a better post was open to me.
Subsequent to this, as you are aware, the late Sir Henry DelaBeche7 sought to induce me to accept an appointment in the Government School of Mines. Before me lies a letter8 from poor Edward Forbes,9 in which he communicated to me the strong desire of himself and his colleagues to have me among them.10 There was nothing in my agreement with the R.I. to prevent me from holding this post in connexion with my professorship, but the fear that such a connexion might interfere with my duties at the Royal Institution caused me to refuse a position which, in many respects, would have been extremely agreeable to me.
This however occurred subsequent to my appointment at the R.I. and therefore could not influence my decision when the professorship of physics11 was offered to me. I might refer to other cases which occurred still later—to offers from Woolwich and elsewhere,12 one of which referred to a position, not however in England,13 worth £600 a year. I refer to these instances on account of their bearing up on a passage of a letter which I shall cite presently, and to show that since I came to the Institution I have exhibited no disposition to be unfaithful towards it.
But when I made my choice in 1853 the two offers first mentioned were before me, and side by side with these was the offer from the Royal Institution. A short time before the official communication reached me I received a letter14 from which I extract as follows:—‘Mr. Faraday proposed you as Professor of Physics, to receive £200 a year and to give 19 lectures. To show what we might, and ought to do, he read a statement of what the Managers had done for Davy, and he said he saw no reason why we should not do the same now. Davy had £100 and rooms the first year, the second year £200; the third £300; the fourth £400; the fifth an extra hundred for an excursion; the sixth it was repeated, and he was allowed to take a travelling assistant and have his expenses paid; the seventh he had a multitude of other appointments. … I have no doubt that a scale sliding upwards will be the result, and you will be allowed any sum however great, for experiments’.
On Thursday the 26th of May 1853 a letter15 reached me from which I will make one or two extracts:—‘The Managers met to day, and I am requested to communicate to you officially, that in consequence of a recommendation from Professor Faraday the Managers are desirous of proposing you for election as Professor of Natural philosophy, with £200 a year’ .... ‘The £200 may and will be increased in a year, and there is no reason why after a time you should not have £400 (or more) if you devote yourself to the R.I.—Davy had, and Mr. Faraday has quoted him as a precedent for this proceeding. We had a very full meeting, and all were for you, and some for offering you more at first, while all agreed that it was very poor pay’.
These are the inducements which I had to weigh against the two other offers to which I have referred. I accepted the professorship at the R.I., but I think it will be granted that some discrepancy exists between the above extracts and my actual position after the lapse of nearly five years. I confess that this has often been a source of dissatisfaction to me. —Dissatisfaction perhaps as much with myself as with others. For had I not reason to infer that I had not come up to the Managers’ expectations regarding me, and that the discrepancy to which I have referred was to be attributed, in part at least, to failure of my own?
I have been repeatedly urged by two or three friends who are acquainted with the above circumstances to bring them under the notice of the Managers. But my repugnance to such a step has been hitherto insurmountable. Urged by a friend, I wrote a letter upon the subject last autumn; but when finished I put it aside, and it has lain in my drawer ever since. At present, however, I think perfect frankness on my part is better than remaining silent as I have hitherto done.
Thus far I have looked at my connexion with the R.I. from a commercial point of view merely. Need I say that from first to last this is the consideration which has had least influence with me. The extracts which I have quoted indicated a feeling towards me which I regarded as a thousand times more precious than any pecuniary emolument that the Royal Institution could bestow. This was my feeling at the time, as my letters if consulted, would shew. It is my feeling now. The Institution has surrounded me with relations which to me are above all price. Indeed my feelings towards the Institution are such as would induce me, were I sufficiently independent, to give it my best services without any pecuniary return whatever; for no return of the kind which it could make is to be put in comparison with the happiness which I have derived from the personal relationships, for which I have to thank my connexion with the Institution.
If I were permitted to give utterance to my feelings on the point in question I would express the hope that should the Managers legislate upon the subject, they will not suffer themselves to be influenced in any degree by considerations regarding my health; but be simply guided by what they consider to be just towards me and advantageous to the Institution and to science. Were I relieved to some extent from lecturing I should not become an idler. Other, and perhaps higher work, would be before me. This, and not my health, is with me the point of chief importance, but as things stand at present I find my power of following up such work far more limited than I could wish it to be. This is the point of view from which I should like the question to be regarded. For my health I have no fears, for it is always in my power to repair its injuries by giving myself rest, and I know the reliance which I can place upon a constitution naturally tough and unshaken by physical intemperance.
Believe me dear Mr. Faraday | Ever yours most faithfully | John Tyndall
To be opened when Mr. Faraday has abundance of leisure, but not before. | Professor Faraday.16
RI MS JT/1/TYP/12/4077–81
Faraday Correspondence, 5:3397
Typed Transcript Only
my course of lectures: on 18 April 1857, Tyndall wrote to Faraday asking if his load of 19 lectures per year could be decreased (see letter 1377). On 1 March 1858, the Managers approved a change to Tyndall’s position that he would deliver no more than a dozen lectures per year. See n. 2 in letter 3397, Tyndall to Faraday, 19 February 1858, Faraday Correspondence, p. 342.
The Managers: see letter 1377, n. 5.
my joining the Institution: the RI.
Another institution: the LI, see setter 1319, n. 5. Tyndall wrote about this offer in his journal entry for 20 February 1853 (Journal, JT/2/13b/601).
a gentleman: possibly John Percy (1817–99), Professor of Metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines from 1851– 79. In his journal entry of 6 July 1853, Tyndall described meeting with many people at a Royal Society meeting, and that ‘Percy warns me to bind myself to the RI. I may regret it he says’ (Journal, JT/2/13b/608). It appears than that in this letter, he misremembered this conversation, writing that it occurred ‘At the conclusion of one of my first lectures at the R.I.’.
a Government establishment: the Government School of Mines and Science Applied to the Arts, established in 1851 (from 1863 known as the Royal School of Mines).
Sir Henry DelaBeche: Henry De la Beche (1796–1855), geologist and first director of the Ordnance Geological Survey (ODNB).
a letter: see letter 0861, Edward Forbes to John Tyndall, 27 December 1853, Tyndall Correspondence, vol. 4.
Edward Forbes: Edward Forbes (1815–54), a highly productive naturalist who published on a wide range of geological and zoological topics. He held a chair of botany at King’s College London, and shortly before his early death was appointed to a professorship of natural history at the University of Edinburgh (ODNB).
among them: at the School of Mines.
professorship of physics: Tyndall’s official title at the RI was Professor of Natural Philosophy.
offers from Woolwich and elsewhere: Tyndall wrote in his journal on 23 November 1854 that he was informed by Charles Wheatstone of an open position at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich for which he would later work as an examiner for commissioned officers (see letter 1306, n. 2 and Journal, JT/2/13b/699).
a position, not however in England: in the spring of 1855 Tyndall was offered a chair at the University of Toronto in Canada and director of its Observatory, but he declined because the position would have him doing scientific observation rather than experimentation. Being far from England was also not desirable for him, despite the much higher pay the positon would have afforded than at the RI. See letter 1074, Edward Sabine to John Tyndall, 24 April 1855, and letter 1075, John Tyndall to Edward Sabine, 26 April 1855, both in Tyndall Correspondence, vol. 5.
a letter: see letter 0756, Henry Bence Jones to John Tyndall, 9 May 1853, Tyndall Correspondence, vol. 4.
a letter: see letter 0762, Henry Bence Jones to John Tyndall, 23 May 1853, Tyndall Correspondence, vol. 4.
To be opened… Professor Faraday: written on the envelope.
Please cite as “Tyndall1493,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on