To the Managers of the Royal Institution
Gentlemen,
You have recently, without solicitation on my part, but animated solely by your own kindness, augmented my income by one hundred pounds a year.
This advance is no doubt of importance to me, but I should be untrue to my own feelings if I omitted to state that I derive a higher pleasure from the manner in which the act has been done and communicated to me, than from the addition which it makes to my material possessions.
Believe me, gentlemen, the kindness, the delicacy, the perfect gentlemanly spirit, which you have manifested towards me, are duly appreciated by me.
I take it for granted that it is not on account of my poor lectures2 that this deed has been accomplished; that it is your desire to encourage and enable me to follow, according to my ability, that course of original investigation to which the World owes so much of its scientific knowledge and the Royal Institution so much of its renown. In this regard I would only ask your patience, and I cherish the humble trust that the future will not quite defeat the strong desire which I now feel to render myself worthy of the kindness so freely & spontaneously bestowed.
I remain Gentlemen | Your obedient Servant | John Tyndall.
19th March | 1859.
RI MS AD_03_04
To Managers of the RI: The Managers of the RI in March 1859 were, as listed in the RI Managers’ Minutes XI, p. 277 (5 April): Lord Ashburton, Warren De la Rue, George Dodd, Sir Charles Fellows, William Grove, Sir Charles Hamilton Bt CB, Sir Henry Holland Bt, H. Bence Jones, Sir R Murchison, James Rennie FRS, Robert Roupell MA QC, Rev William Taylor, John Webster, Charles Wheatstone, Col Philip Yorke. See also letter 1596, n. 3.
my poor lectures: in 1859 Tyndall gave a series of twelve lectures on the Force of Gravity at the RI.
Please cite as “Tyndall1602,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on