Subjects
The Correspondence of John Tyndall
General Editors: James Elwick, Bernard Lightman and Michael S Reidy
Eminent Victorian physicist John Tyndall (1820–93) was one of the most influential scientists of the nineteenth century. A leading figure in the debates surrounding evolution, Tyndall was one of a group of powerful intellectuals who defended Darwin against his critics. Though born into the lower middle classes, he became a pillar of the scientific establishment. Tyndall was an aggressive champion of the professionalization of science and of the move towards a more meritocratic basis for science. On his death Tyndall was an honorary member of thirty scientific societies and had held the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution for more than thirty years. In addition to his scientific roles Tyndall was also at the forefront of a number of mountaineering endeavours. Yet despite these achievements, Tyndall has, until recently, been overshadowed by his contemporaries – Huxley, Hooker, Darwin – in part because of a lack of published material on his life. This series will redress this inbalance by publishing around 8,000 newly-transcribed letters from over a dozen archives worldwide.
In the days before journal publishing was fully developed, the exchange of correspondence was a highly efficient way of sharing scientific research. Tyndall's correspondents read like a 'who's who' of international nineteenth-century science and include: Charles Babbage, J D Hooker, Thomas Henry Huxley, Charles Lyell, Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch and Bertrand Russell. The letters include insights into his fierce debates with Christian intellectuals, scandalized by Tyndall's support of Darwin's theory of natural selection, as well as referring to his ground-breaking work on climatology. (He was among the first to recognize the role of gasses in producing the greenhouse effect.) The variety of his exchanges on scientific projects, mountaineering and Home Rule in Ireland provide insight into the vast range of his interests and his politics, as well as documenting important events of the time.
The fully-transcribed correspondence in these volumes is presented chronologically, with an introduction in each volume. Each letter is annotated where necessary and a calendar of correspondence and a consolidated index will also be compiled.
To read more about the John Tyndall Correspondence Project, click here
Editorial board
James Elwick is a Lecturer in the Department of Natural Science at York University and Coordinator of the John Tyndall Correspondence Project. His research interests include the history of biology, particularly the history of biology in Victorian Britain, and the ways in which biological imagery and language shape possibilities for social and political action and vice versa. Recent publications include Styles of Reasoning in British Life Sciences: Shared Assumptions, 1820–1858, (Pickering & Chatto, 2007).
Bernard Lightman is Professor of Humanities at York University, Society and Isis Editor for the History of Science Society and Director of the Toronto Node of the Situating Science: Cluster for the Humanist and Social Studies of Science project. His research interests include European intellectual history, nineteenth-century British history and the history of modern science. Professor Lightman is Series Editor for Pickering & Chatto's Science and Culture in the Nineteenth-Century and is currently working on a two-part collection on Victorian Science and Literature (Pickering & Chatto, forthcoming).
Michael Reidy is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at Montana State University. His research interests include the history of science and technology, the history of mountaineering and the history of the oceans. Publications include Tides of History: Ocean Science and Her Majesty’s Navy (University of Chicago Press, 2008), Exploration and Science, co-authored with Erik Conway and Gary Kroll (ABC-CLIO, 2006) and Communicating Science: The Scientific Article from the 17th Century to the Present, co-authored with Alan G Gross and Joseph E Harmon (Oxford University Press, 2002).
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