Cambridge | April 2/64
My dear Tyndall,
My health has been sufficiently precarious during a great part of this winter to render considerable caution necessary so that I have been but very little away from home of late, and in London only on one or two occasions of official necessity. It is not likely that I shall be there for the election you mention,2 but if so your recommendation of your friend Dr. Debus shall have its due weight. I shall probably resign before long the noble office of Senator of the London University though I should have liked very much to retain it, had I been resident in town, but living here I can’t attend the meetings without giving up the whole day to each, which is expensive both in time and money. In fact I am getting tired of scientific work (except in my own study) without a farthing of scientific pay. After nearly 40 years of hard work I may say literally that I do not owe a farthing of my present income to science. I don’t speak of this as a matter of complaint, but as a matter of ill luck, which seems likely in these my latter days, to circumscribe my intercourse with my London scientific friends, a prospect which I have been looking to for some time with deep regret—However, if I should give a vote when your friend is a candidate, though I make no absolute promise, I shall be very much disposed to give him my support.
Health is essential to a man who works as hard as you do. Take care of yourself.
Yours very truly, | W. Hopkins.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/2/646
W. Hopkins: William Hopkins (1793–1866), an English mathematician and geologist, and renowned private tutor to undergraduate students at Cambridge (ODNB).
the election you mention: not identified (it does not refer to the election of Debus to the Athenaeum, which was in 1873); possibly, however, this was related to Debus’ position of Examiner in Chemistry at the University of London from 1864–9, which he held again from 1871–6 and 1878–82 (Who’s Who 1907: An Annual Biographical Dictionary (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1907), p. 462).
Please cite as “Tyndall2078,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on