9 Athol Street, Edinburgh | Nov. 15th 1859.2
My dear Dr Tyndall
After a journey of 12 hours, I arrived here ½ frozen last night from Lemington.
Doctor Simpson3 (of chloroform renown)4 joined me at the Carstairs station,5 and as there were none else in the carriage, we had a talk “de omnibus rebus”6 all the way to Edinburgh.
“Whom are you to have in room of James Forbes” said I “Oh Tyndall, I hope” said he. We then had a long discussion which ended by our deciding that in the Chair of Nat. Philosophy in our7 “Alma Mater”, you would be “the right man in the right place”. S.8 declared with confidence his belief that if you would only accept, he and Geo. Wilson9 and Lyon Playfair would be able to secure your election without any trouble on your part. I asked him if I might tell you so, to which he unhesitatingly assented, adding he did not think you would be required to produce testimonials even.
Arrangements are made for the present session, so you would have nearly a whole year of preparation, and I would really urge you, at all events, to let it be understood that you would accept the Chair of Office[.] No doubt the candidates will be “Legion”,10 but I have a strong notion you would distance them all.
Simpson has a great deal to say in these matters, and I am sure, from what passed between us yesterday, he did put his shoulder in earnest to the wheel that should roll you into the Nat. Phil. Chair.
I found my sister11 lamenting her widowhood—the Commissioner12 having been absent for nearly a fortnight and not expected home until tomorrow.
Dinner comes on the table, and I conclude in haste hoping to have an early line to say you are ready to enter the field.
Ever most sincerely Yours | [W. F.] Cumming
Professor Tyndall | &c. &c.
I have just written to Arygle13 the substance of my conversation with Prof. Simpson.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/1/278
LT Typescript Only
Louisa Tyndall added the note ‘W. G. Cumming | Nov. 4. 60’, but the sender is presumed to be W. F. Cumming.
Tyndall recorded the receipt of this letter in his journal for Wednesday 16 November 1859, ‘A letter from Dr Cumming about the Edinburgh Chair—he seems confident of my election’ (Journal, RI MS JT/2/13c/1162).
Simpson: likely refers to James Simpson (see letter 1648, n. 3).
(of chloroform renown): Simpson advocated obstetric anaesthesia, in particular by use of chloroform (ODNB).
Carstairs station: station in Sought Lanarkshire, Scotland.
de omnibus rebus: A Latin saying, often used in the longer version ‘de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis’ which can loosely be translated to mean ‘on everything and anything’, or simply ‘to ramble on’.
Chair of Nat. Philosophy: Tyndall considered taking up the newly available Chair of Physics at the University of Edinburgh. See letter 1645, n. 3.
S.: likely refers to Simpson, see n. 3.
Geo. Wilson: George Wilson.
No doubt the candidates will be “Legion”: means that Cumming expected there to be multiple candidates for the posts.
my sister: Mary Coxe (née Cumming, 1811–c.1875). Their mother was the subject of Robert Burns’s ‘Bonnie Lesley’ as noted in the novelist Charles Gibbon’s dedication of In Honour Bound, vol. 1 (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1874) to Lady Coxe. In 1841 she married the Scottish physician James Coxe. She was a correspondent of Tyndall’s and he claimed to have toasted her on the summit of Mont Blanc in 1857. See also letter 1739.
the Commissioner: James Coxe (1811–78), Scottish physician who studied at Göttingen, Heidelberg, Paris, and received his MD in 1835 from the University of Edinburgh, where he then practiced medicine. In 1841 he married Mary Anne Cumming. In 1855 he was appointed to the Royal Commission that examined the condition of the lunatic asylums in Scotland and, following the 1857 Act that established the General Board of Lunacy for Scotland, he served as one of its two paid commissioners. He was knighted in 1863 for his services. (‘Sir James Coxe’. Illustrated London News, 18 May 1878, p. 471).
Argyle: George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll (1823–1900), politician, and writer on science and religion. A regular correspondent with Tyndall.
Please cite as “Tyndall1651,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on