Confidential | 12 Nov/591
My dear Tyndall.
Your reasons are very strong;2 but pause a little before you decide finally.
To day Simpson3 & Wilson pledged themselves to support you & we three could certainly influence the majority of the Court in your favour, as this majority consists of Town Councillors who have always acted with us & ask our opinions. Besides I am sure your name would secure you nearly an unanimous Election. I therefore wish you to think of it as an office you could get.4
The emoluments which I give you are those made by Forbes (deducting payment of the assistants which lecture for him). But his health has made the Chair run down, and it is not what it was or could be made. As an instance of this, when I came here, Gregory had run down this Chair to £450 yearly. My fees are already £1250 but as I have an ambition to found a Laboratory & to introduce the Tutorial System into the Scotch Colleges as a supplement to the Professorial System,5 I make very little profit out of the fees. But the rise shows you what may be done in a Chair fairly worked.
You would have only six months Lectures, one hour daily & six months entire Holiday, for investigations & travel.
Therefore still think of it. I may mention to you privately that no official resignation can be given in till the 2nd Dec[emb]r & that probably Forbes will keep the Chair all winter.6 But Candidates become so thick that you must decide promptly, say within 8 days, whether your friends should put you forward or not.
Brewster & Forbes have made me their umpire as to the period of their mutual resignations, so that there will be no sudden Election, but at the same time Candidates are already actively canvassing.
Yours truly | Lyon Playfair
RI MS JT/1/P/118
RI MS JT/TYP/3/988
Tyndall recorded the receipt of this letter in his journal for Monday 14 November, ‘Another ‘confidential’ letter from Playfair. Simpson and Wilson have pledged for me—my name he says would secure for me a nearly unanimous elections, and therefore he wishes me to think of it as an office which I could get’. (Journal, RI MS JT/2/13c/ 1162)
Your reasons are very strong: letter 1646. See also 1645, n. 3.
Simpson: likely the physician James Simpson, based on a reference in letter 1651.
we three could certainly influence … I therefore wish you to think of it as an office you could get: Playfair was referring to the hiring process for the Chair of Physics at the University of Edinburgh, detailed in letter 1657.
introduce the Tutorial System into the Scotch Colleges as a supplement to the Professorial. System: Mainly practiced at Cambridge and Oxford, tutorials were regular meetings of small groups of students with a tutor, who trained their students with exercises related to the subjects discussed in the lectures. Playfair thought that lectures had too many students for teaching to be effective, and therefore adopted the tutorial system. Other Scottish colleges would follow Playfair in adopting tutorial systems. (W. P. Doyle, ‘Lyon Playfair (1818-1898)’. University of Edinburgh, School of Chemistry. Accessed May 23, 2018. http://www.chem.ed.ac.uk/about-us/history/professors/lyon-playfair).
keep the Chair all winter: see letter 1645, n. 2.
Please cite as “Tyndall1648,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on