24th, June, 1864.
My dear Miss Roche
The copy of the Alpine Journal1 which you will have received before this note reaches your hands contains the account of the death of my brave guide.2 I shall feel lonely without him this year in Switzerland. I can never hope to have another like him; we knew each other so thoroughly and trusted each other so completely.
I have been thinking at intervals during the last dozen years of placing a tomb over my father’s3 grave; but I put it off hoping to be able to choose one myself during a visit to Carlow.4 Could you advise me as to how this matter might be arranged?—I should like something substantial,5 an emblem of the man himself; and nobody knows but me how substantial he was.
If some man in Carlow would furnish me with a few sketches, with the cost annexed I could perhaps choose from them. I should like the tomb to be of some durable material.
I will write to you from the Alps.
Believe me | Yours most truly | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3850
LT Typescript Only
copy of the Alpine Journal: the Alpine Journal is one of the oldest mountaineering journals in the world, published in London by Longman. It replaced Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers. The accident Tyndall referred to was published as Philip C. Gosset, ‘Narrative of the Fatal Accident on the Haut-de-Cry, Canton Valais’, Alpine Journal, 1 (1864), pp. 288–294.
my brave guide: Johann Joseph Bennen.
my father’s: John Tyndall (1792–1847), who grew up in Leighlinbridge and married Sarah McAssey in 1813. They had two children that are definitely known: John and his older
sister Emma (b. 1817). He probably served in the Royal Irish Constabulary at the police station in Nurney from 1828–33. The family then moved to Castlebellingham, County Louth for the next three years before returning to Leighlinbridge, where he worked as a boot and shoemaker. He may also have served as a land agent for William Steuart, one of the principal landlords in Leighlinbridge and also the main patron of the Tyndall family. His 1847 death was a blow to his son, who relied on his father for advice.
Carlow: a country town in County Carlow, Ireland.
I should like something substantial: see letter 2121.
Please cite as “Tyndall2113,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on