The seventeenth volume of The Correspondence of John Tyndall includes 456 letters, documenting a pivotal period in his life. It opens with Tyndall’s resignation from his long-held post as scientific adviser to the Board of Trade and Trinity House, a decision that provoked a very public dispute with a government minister. During these years, Tyndall became increasingly outspoken on political affairs, denouncing the domestic and foreign policies of William Gladstone’s Liberal governments and aligning himself more firmly with conservatism. His private life also entered a new phase with the purchase of a large plot of land at Hindhead, where he and his wife, Louisa, would eventually settle after enduring the considerable strain of building a new home. Though he remained superintendent of the Royal Institution of Great Britain—continuing to deliver lecture courses and the occasional Friday Evening Discourse—his correspondence reveals that scientific research, while still important, now occupied a smaller share of his time and attention.
