Royal Institution of Great Britain | 13th. November
My dear Mr White
Dr. Frankland is not Fullerian Professor. Prof[essor]. Faraday still holds the office.
Dr. Frankland’s title is Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution & that of your humble servant is Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution—There is no Fullerian Professorship of Natural Philosophy.
To the minds rather than to the eyes of my friends I wish to be commended. But if you wish for ornamentation here is some.
John Tyndall member of the Academies & Societies of Holland Geneva, Göttingen, Zurich, Halle, Marburg, Breslau, Upsala, la Societé Philomathique de Paris,3 Cam. Phil. Soc.4 Physical & Philosophical Societies of Berlin &c. Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution & in the Royal School of Mines.5
Will that satisfy you? If not wait a few years & you shall have more.
Please omit the Ph.D.6 | Yours truly | John Tyndall
Have you succeeded in finding the drawing7 that I sent to Prof[essor]. Stokes some months ago? Mr Marshall8 is Fullerian Prof[essor]. of Physiology
RS MS/769/111
Walter White: probably Walter White (1811–93), an English travel writer who served as librarian (1844–61) and then assistant secretary (1861–85) of the RS. He was also a prolific contributor to the periodical Chambers’s Journal (ODNB).
[1863]: although indicated 1863 this may perhaps relater to 1864 prior to the presentation of the Rumford Medal to Tyndall, though the reason for the reference to Frankland is not clear.
la Societé Philomathique de Paris: the Philomatic Society of Paris, founded in 1788.
Cam. Phil. Soc: the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Cambridge’s oldest scientific society, was founded in 1818 by the geologist Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) and botanist John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861). See S. Gibson, The Spirit of Inquiry: How One Extraordinary Society Shaped Modern Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
Royal School of Mines: see letter 1987, n. 4.
Please omit the Ph.D: it is not clear why Tyndall would make this request.
the drawing: letter missing and drawing not identified.
Mr. Marshall: John Marshall (1818–91), an English surgeon and anatomist. He was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the RI from 1862–5 (ODNB).
Please cite as “Tyndall2042,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on