17 Cobden Road. | Brighton. | December 7. 1864.
My dear Sir.
Through my son2 I have heard of the kindly interest you have taken in my present position, and your mention of my name in connexion with some vacancy in the literary department of the ‘Reader.’3
If I understand my son aright the department of travel and of literature in the Reader is at present unoccupied. This I could undertake with full consciousness of my ability to fulfil its requirements.
Myself a rather extensive traveller, having spent 14 years in various parts of the West Indies and South America, journeyed through Holland, Belgium and part of France, and having very recently returned from Australia where I went into the far interior. These antecedents would enable me to speak from a practical standpoint on matters connected with physical and political geography.
For many years I have been connected with the press, and I beg to enclose a few testimonials received by me when I was a candidate for another position of a literary character. The shortness of the time since my son spoke to me on this subject, prevents my getting fresh ones, but in their place I send the Eclectic Review,4 and St. James’s Magazine,5 both for this month in each of which are articles by myself. In the first on “New South Wales,”6 and in the second on “Old and odd Inn signs.”7
Should I obtain the appointment you may rely upon my throwing all my energies into it, and on my unremitting attention to the required duties.
I remain, | my dear Sir, | Yours respectfully | W: G: Barrett.
Dr. Tyndall F.R.S.—
UCL-03 - UCL-04b
William Garland Barrett: William Garland Barrett (1812–65), an English amateur naturalist and Congregationalist minister. As a member of the London Missionary Society he had formerly run a station to aid emancipated slaves in Kingston, Jamaica, before returning to live in Herefordshire in 1848 (ODNB)
my son: William Fletcher Barrett.
the ‘Reader’: see letter 2181, n. 1.
Eclectic Review: a journal founded in 1805 in order to raise awareness of the role which literature plays ‘in obstructing or in accelerating the progress of religious truth and human happiness’ (Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824–1900).
St. James’s Magazine: a long-running literary magazine.
“New South Wales”: possibly ‘New South Wales’, Eclectic Review, 7 (1864), pp. 626–36.
“Old and odd Inn signs”: probably ‘Old Inn Signs and Old Saws’, St. James’s Magazine, 12 (1864), pp. 103–6 (the article is signed only with a ‘B’).
Please cite as “Tyndall2189,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on