To Thomas Huxley   8 June 1879

Melbourne

8/6/79

 

Allow me, dear Professor Huxley, to solicit your powerful support for the election of Prof McCoy, FGS, into the Royal Society next November.1 As a fellow worker in the same specialities you will know how worthy a candidate I propose, and doubtless the Professor would long since have earned this reward in science also, as lately that of the Murchison Medal,2 had he allowed his modesty to step forward as a Candidate. It is solely at my action that he now seeks the honor of FRS.

I have written simultaneously to Sir Jos. Hooker, Sir John Lubbock, Prof Williamson,3 Prof Stokes and Mr Carruthers4 to see whether they unitedly would secure Prof McCoys election, in which effort you will doubtless gladly share.

Let me hope, my honored Sir, that your health is quite firm again, so that you can proceed on your luminous path of investigations uninteruptedly.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller

 

Though all the illustrious men on the Council of the RS are known to me by their works, I have refrained from adressing those, whose researches are in different directions to my own poor work. Nevertheless all would likely respond to a kind call of yours to honour Prof McCoy.

1
MS annotation: 'elected 3.6.1880'. Under its Statutes, the Royal Society of London held a single election of new Fellows each year, not at its Anniversary Meeting in November as M here supposes, but on the first Thursday in June. McCoy was elected at the first attempt on 3 June 1880. See Record of the Royal Society (1940), pp. 302, 488.
2
McCoy was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society in 1879.
3
Presumably A. W. Williamson, who was Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society at this time.
4
See M to J. Hooker, 8 June 1879 (in this edition as 79-06-08b) and M to W. Carruthers, 8 June 1879 (in this edition as 79-06-08f). Letters to Lubbock, Williamson and Stokes not found.

Please cite as “FVM-79-06-08,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 8 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/79-06-08