Friday
My dear Sharpey,
Kirchhof3 has written to me4 expressing the great pleasure which the receipt of the medal5 has caused him. He regrets that on account of his lectures he will be prevented from attending at the meeting on the 30th6 and he requests me to receive the medal for him and to return his acknowledgments for the great honour which the Society7 has conferred upon him.
He also has asked me whether it is usual to return a formal letter of thanks to the Council. In fact he wishes to do what is right & simply needs instruction.
I of course am willing to comply with his request though perhaps Stokes or Grove would be the fitter person. Will you tell me how I am act under the circumstances?
I, of course, should have been his proposer had I been present soon enough on the occasion when his name was brought forward—In fact it was at your own suggestion that I withdrew his name as a candidate for the Copley medal8 last year, in order to rescue him for the Rumford.9
Yours very truly | J. Tyndall
Wellcome, MS. 7777/75
William Sharpey: William Sharpey (1802–80), a Scottish anatomist, physiologist, and secretary of the RS (1854–72). From 1836 until his retirement from the post in 1874, Sharpey was chair in anatomy and physiology at the University College, London, where he taught the first course in systematic physiology in England. Sharpey was an influential figure in British science, introducing the work of other scholars to the Society, and refereeing papers for the Phil. Trans., but also through his teaching (notable students include John Marshall and Joseph Lister). He also established a lectureship in practical physiology at University College in 1855, a position that was held, in turn, by J. B. Hayes, George Harley, Michael Forster, Edward Schafer, and John Burden Sanderson. Through these students and colleagues Sharpey was responsible for the re-establishment of physiology across Britain, as they took up chairs and lectureships not only in London, but also in Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh.
[November 1862]: the date is given since the RS announced its awards at the first Council meeting in November each year, with the awards being presented at the Anniversary Meeting on 30 November. Kirchhoff received the Rumford Medal in 1862 (see letter 1943, n. 1).
Kirchhof: Gustav Robert Kirchhoff.
has written to me: letter 1943.
receipt of the medal: see letter 1943, n. 1.
the meeting on the 30th: the RS awards were announced at the first Council meeting in November and medals presented at the Anniversary Meeting on 30 November.
the Society: the RS.
the Copley medal: the Copley Medal, considered the most prestigious award of the RS, is awarded for the most important scientific discovery or for the greatest contribution made by experiment, was awarded in 1861 to the naturalist Louis Agassiz for his researches in paleontology and other branches of science, and particularly for his great works the Poissons Fossiles, and his Poissons du Vieux Gres Rouge d’Ecosse (‘Anniversary Meeting’, Roy. Soc. Proc., 11 (1862), pp. 454–72, on pp. 461–4).
the Rumford: see n .2.
Please cite as “Tyndall1949,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on