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(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
4 Aug. 1928

My dear Gerald,

I got your letter of March 17 all right, and I have left it a long while without an answer; but I hope that your new rifle has protected you from lions and buffaloes hitherto. I am glad to hear you have become a Fellow of the Geological Society. Nicholas, who is going to be our new Senior Bursar, says he has kept a table for you in the laboratory. The Ellis you speak of was one of our Chaplains in the College chapel, and I knew him fairly well.

I spent a fortnight in June at St Germain near Paris, a place with a splendid view and a forest close at hand, and I also motored about. I escaped the rain that they had in England, but it was not as warm as June should be. July has been fine and hot, and next week I am off to spend a month in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Hampshire. My godfather, in whom I hope you take a proper interest, is 89 and quite in good health, but losing his memory; so be prepared for my mental decay in 20 years’ time.

I hope both you and Oscar are well.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] Gerald Jackson Esq. | R.C.B.C. Ltd. | K’Changa†, via N’Dola | N. Rhodesia

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 9.30 p.m. on 4 August and at Ndola, N.W. Rhodesia, on 1 September.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
6 Nov. 1929

My dear Gerald,

I have just had a request from the Colonial Office to tell them all your bad qualities (refusal to learn Catechism &c), so I want to know what you are up to now, and whether you have abandoned your studies in London, and are off to Africa again. At any rate I hope the malaria is put right.

I am now at the ordinary work of term.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[DIrection on envelope:] Gerald Jackson Esq. | c/ Rupert Jackson Esq. M.D. | 97 Clifton Avenue | West Hartlepool [Redirected to:] 33 Courtfield Rd | S: Kensington | London S W 7

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 9 p.m. on 6 November and at West Hartlepool at 11.30 a.m. on the 7th.

(With cuttings from The Times, 9 and 10 Feb., containing articles headed ‘Empire Copper | The New Mines of Rhodesia | I.—A Task for the Geologist’ and ‘Empire Copper | II.—Recruits to Rhodesia | A Mixed Mining Community’, and an envelope.)

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Trinity College | Cambridge
10 Feb. 1931

My dear Gerald,

These articles may interest you if you have not seen them. I hope you are not one of the people who have been caused much distress by the closing down of the Burana M’Kubwa mine.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] Gerald Jackson Esq. | Imperial College Hostel | Prince Consort Road | S. W. 7

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 10.15 p.m. on 10 February.

Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
22 Oct. 1931

My dear Gerald,

If in these times you find yourself in straits I hope you will apply to me, unless we have a Labour government, in which case I shall be unable to do anything for anyone.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Marked in pencil:] 22.10.31

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
27 May 1933

My dear Gerald,

As far as I can make out, I should say it would be more prudent to keep on at your medical course instead of taking up a job at geology which does not promise permanency. But of course you have to reckon with the possibility that I may die, in which case, as I told you, my assistance would come to an end.

I am not going to sign the lecture for anybody, as I do not regard it as one of my good works.

I am glad you are going to the Irish Guards again.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] G. C. A. Jackson Esq. | Medical School | St Thomas’s Hospital | S. E. 1

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, half torn away, was postmarked at Cambridge at 10.15 p.m. on 27 May.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
26 Dec. 1933

My dear Gerald,

I am writing to thank you for your Christmas letter and to wish you a happy New Year. As this will soon be here, you will be in need of another cheque, which I will send when I know your address for certain. I am going on much the same. Remember me to your family if you are still among them.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] Gerald Jackson Esq. | c/ Rupert Jackson Esq., M.D. | 97 Clifton Avenue | West Hartlepool

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 10.15 p.m. on 26 December, and has been marked in pencil ‘26/12/33’.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
18 Jan. 1934

My dear Gerald,

As I suppose you must now be back in London and at work again I enclose cheque {1} for £480.0.0 to see you through this year. I hope you had a good Christmas in the north and found the rest of your family well.

I am going on tolerably, neither worse nor better, I think. The eating and drinking of Christmas does me no harm, and the 52 oysters I consumed on Dec. 31 rather did me good.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] G. C. A. Jackson Esq. | The Medical School | St Thomas’s Hospital | S. E. 1

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, half torn away, was postmarked at Cambridge at 9 p.m.(?) on 18 January, and has been marked in pencil ‘18.1.34’.

{1} A line has been drawn below this word to draw attention to it. Cf. Nos. 47 and 57.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
13 Sept. 1934

My dear Gerald,

I came back yesterday and have received your letter of the 7th, from which I am glad to have good news of you. I had three weeks of almost perfect weather, spent mostly in Alsace and Lor-raine, a part of France quite new to me and well worth seeing. I think the trip has done me some good on the whole, though I caught a cold at the end of it and am feeling rather tired to-day.

My chief ambition all my life has been to be invited to the Colchester Oyster Feast. This has come to pass this year, but my lecture at Cambridge will prevent me from going. Let this be a lesson to my godson that earthly hopes are dust and ashes.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] G. C. A. Jackson Esq. | Medical School | St Thomas’s Hospital | S. E. 1

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge on 13 September (the time is indistinct).

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
15 Oct. 1934

My dear Gerald,

Cease worrying about expense: I can support you quite well, apart from the fact that the sale of my lecture has been profitable and that my holiday has been less expensive than usual.

I forgot if I told you that on the 22nd you can view the Library, as a member of the University, from 2.30 to 5.30 without a ticket, and can take friends with you.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] G. C. A. Jackson Esq | Medical School | St Thomas’s Hospital | S. E. 1

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The envelope, which has been marked in pencil ‘15.10.34’, was postmarked at Cambridge at 6 p.m. on 15 October. The postage stamp has been torn off.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
9 Jan. 1935 {1}

My dear Gerald,

From what you said in your letter of the 19th I gather that you will be back in London on Jan. 1, so I send you enclosed a cheque {2} for £450 for this next year, which I hope will be happy and occupied with interesting work. I hope too that you found the family party at West Hartlepool in good health and spirits. Oscar wrote me a very nice long letter with much information about himself and the rest of you. He seems to be inclined to be looking for a new job.

I have not asked you to stay with me here this year because I have felt hardly comfortable enough to be fit for a guest. On the advice of a friend of mine who is a doctor I have just been a total abstainer for a week, which has only resulted in producing symptoms of gout; so I had better stick to my proper medical adviser.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] Gerald Jackson Esq | Medical School | St Thomas’s Hospital | S. E. 1

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The envelope bears a 1½d stamp, but there is no postmark or any other mark of posting. It has been marked with the date ‘19 Jan. ’35’, which is wrong.

{1} ‘9 Jan. 1935’ below ‘31 Dec. 1934’, struck through.

{2} A line has been drawn below this word to draw attention to it. Cf. Nos. 41 and 57.

Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
17 Jan. 1936

My dear Gerald,

Acquainted as you are with Fortnum and Mason and familiar with the female medical soul you are just the man to execute the job. After a stay in the Evelyn Nursing Home, where they are always extraordinarily kind and attentive, I send the nurses a present of something to eat, such as strawberries in season, or boxes of chocolates. Will you expend the enclosed cheque for £2.0.0 in purchasing and having sent from them a selection of sweetmeats (crystallised fruits or anything which you think will be relished, and perhaps not exactly what is most commonly to be found in Cambridge—though do not be particular about that, as they are all fond of chocolate) addressed to the Deputy Matron and enclosing the enclosed letter from me?

Thanks for all your enquiries during my illness. I was obliged to neglect all correspondence and am only now beginning to write. I gave my first lecture this morning, and had no difficulty in the actual delivery, but crossing the court was a labour and indeed so is almost any physical action.

I think your idea of a holiday before the examination is very likely a good one.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

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{1} A line has been drawn below this amount to draw attention to it. Cf. Nos. 41 and 47.

JGL encloses 'a cheque for Mr Murray in acknowledgement of your friend's share in the art on yr second volume'. JGL is not impressed with it.

Orleans - GA and his students are settled in Orleans and 'in as satisfactory a state of stable equilibrium as can be expected'. If his paper in the Philosophical Transactions has been published could WW send him 70 copies. Could WW tell [Henry] Kater 'that I have investigated a theory of the pendulum...as he suggested to me: and that the interval to reappearance does not follow so simple a law as he seemed to imagine?' And if he sees Young, that further to his letter addressed to GA in the Quarterly Journal, 'I get a different result? The result however consolidates his influence. The problem is, to find the form of a thin revolving fluid surrounding a nucleus'.

Keswick - If WW is in Cambridge could he correct the proofs to his paper on Trigonometry for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana: 'I have just got a letter from [Edward] Smedley who is in an awful fright about it...If you take this upon you, would it be worth the trouble to say so to Smedley? he would then send proofs directly'.

Keswick - GA has just received a letter from Thomas Atkinson of Ainstable 'with a certificate from Hudson, which I transmit to you as being (I believe) Hudson's successor' [concerning TA's entry into Trinity College?].

Trinity College Cambridge - GA agrees with WW that his article on eye pieces should be printed immediately. If WW can arrange this, could he pass on the address of the printers and engraver. He has received the latest number of the Philosophical Journal which contains two letters by James Ivory about GA: 'I wish the man would not torment me by writing letters to me; I am amused by his idea that I have fallen into error from deference to high authorities; I never expected this accusation'.

Observatory - There is not a word about undulations in the papers by William Herschel on Newton's rings, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1807 and 1809 respectively: 'I have been observing the following curious phenomenon. If Newton's rings be produced by two glasses, however they be viewed the central spot is black. But if a glass be placed on metal, and viewed with polarised light (polarised to plane of reflection) then up to the polarising angle the central spot is black, and instantly beyond that it is white. This I anticipated from Fresnel's [experiments]: it is confirmatory of them, and defies emissions'.

Observatory - GA gives a description of his observations of light polarised through glass and a diamond: 'At the first angle of incidence where this takes place (viz. the polarising angle of the glass) the rings go out, evanesce, and disappear: and on increasing the angle they appear in as good proportions at the first instant when visible as when tolerably bright - the white center having the same proportion to the 1st ring did. Of this I am quite certain, having looked carefully. But at the second angle (viz. the polarising angle of the diamond), where the white-centered rings change into black-centered, there is no such thing; the rings do not vanish at all though they become faint; but the first black ring contracts, squeezes out the white center, and itself becomes the black center. This also I have examined carefully. The same thing takes place when, at an angle between the polarizing angles, the tourmaline or prism is turned round'. Amongst other things this proves that the 'diamond does not polarise perfectly at any angle'. Vibrations in the plane of incidence change from + to - on passing through the angle where the polarisation is nearest to perfection. This is 'not by becoming =0 (as certainly they do in glass & all things that polarise perfectly) but by an alteration of the plane.'

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Gives an account of the difficulties involved in constructing a self-registering machine to measure terrestrial magnetism: 'There is only one way in which I can conceive the possibility of such a machine, namely by making the magnet carry a point, and constructing [a] mechanism which should lift the paper up to the point to receive a dot and then withdraw the paper that the magnet might quietly make up its mind as to the position that it would take for the next dot: this to be repeated as often as necessary, say every minute. Taking into account the horizontal oscillation, the up-and-down-bobbing &c of the magnet, which may be checked, I think this may be mechanically possible: but what shall the dot be?' - there are problems with the different possible inks. Is puzzled by David Brewster's latest work - 'it amounts to this, that light from different parts of the spectra can interfere. This is quite opposed to all analogy'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA sends WW two papers including his piece on Cambridge Planetary errors. Main has been trying to correct the elements of Venus from them, but the errors come out so oddly as to make GA suspect that there is some error of theory.

Royal Greenwich Observatory - GA's paper 'On a New Construction of the Going Fusee, Adapted in the Clock-Work of the Northumberland Telescope' is ready, and he will be reading it on Monday evening at the Philosophical Society.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Gives his comments regarding WW's paper on the history of optics and light in general [for his The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded Upon their History?]: 'There is one fault in the general arrangement, which I do not see how to remove - namely, that the phenomena and explanations of fringes, gratings, &c, did precede in history and do precede in mental comprehension those relating to dipolarisation. But the things are very much interlaced all through'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA has been reading WW's work on tides 'with great pleasure and profit'. He gives an outline of queries he finds between various collected observations - especially around the coast of Britain and parts of Europe - and theory.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Could WW send him 'bound or unbound' his copy of La Lande's 'Traite du Flux et Reflux de la Mes'.

Flamsteed House, Greenwich - Some time ago GA asked for WW's opinion about republishing his tracts [see GA to WW, 10 October 1839]. GA then wrote to Deighton [book publisher] - 'they say that the book sold very slowly and they do not like to publish again on their own risk; most certainly I shall not do on mine'. Has WW any suggestions on making it 'readable' or know of any young man who might take up the thing? - 'a treatise on Optics ought to exist in the world'. GA has not done much work on tides recently. The gale of wind of January 2 and the following morning 'produced a most marvellous effect on the succeeding tide in the Thames. He has received Bunt's [Thomas G. Bunt] Bristol observations taken from the self registering tide gages: 'It is a great pity that he does not go to low water; and also that there is not an infinity of tide gages and gages symmetrically distributed over the coasts and seas'. They should try and get the observations from Brest. Can WW get the readings from the wind mometers in Cambridge from January 1 to January 4. GA wants to find the course of the wind in connexion with the tide.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA can supply WW with absolutely no information concerning the Oxford candidates, although he did briefly meet Walker when he came to view an Anemometer: 'I do not think that either of them is known out of Oxford'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA returns Emy's [A.R. Emy, Du Movement des Ondes et des Travaux Hydrauliques Maritimes, 1831] and Brémontier's treatises on waves and sea-works: 'I have not found much in them that suited my purpose, but they are curious as shewing the efforts which hard-headed men have made, without adequate mathematics, to understand a subject which (as I am more and more convinced by increased reading) cannot be touched at all without a beginning of good mathematics, although the advance which the best mathematics can make is small'. Could WW help GA with 'one of my carnal wants', and remind Mr Clayton of GA's request for a supply of strong and mild ale.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - Christie has sent him Belcher's observations at Tahiti: 'The solar tide there from whatever cause, is almost exactly equal to the lunar tide (April & May 1840), & that at quadratures the tide disappears'. GA gives his opinion of WW's distinction between an unlimited canal and a re-entering canal: 'In the formation of the differential equations there is no difference whatever (the laws of fluids, as regards transmission of pressure and the effect of pressure and external force on motion, applying in both cases to every point of the fluid: and this being all that the differential equations express). In the solution of the differential equations there is no difference except this - that, in the nature of the thing, it is impossible to permit solutions in the reentering canal which are not periodical in the completion of the circuit of the canal. There is however usually no temptation to introduce such, because the expression for the forces (on which the distinctive function in the solution must depend) are necessarily periodic in the completion of the circuit'. GA outlines some of the complications involved with the distinctive function (and arbitrary function) and the type of canal.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA invites WW to dine at 'our visitation Dinner on Saturday June 3 at the Crown & Sceptre'. He also sends copies of papers on the London, Southampton and Norwich tides: 'The great difference in the general phenomena of the Southampton and Norwich tides, and the small difference in the mathematical formulae which represent them, appear to me very remarkable. I cannot at present explain them'. He has not received all his Irish tide observations: 'Till I have received all, I cannot set the reductions regularly a-going, because for certain matters all are to be combined. But I can see, in the tables already drawn out, some curious things'.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - GA just missed WW at York. He has since been with Richarda to Kingstown in Dublin on the first stage of the chronometric project to Valentia: 'The chronometers had already been in oscillation some time, Sheepshanks [Richard Sheepshanks] doing the Astronomical part at Kingstown. For the transmission of the chronometers, I had had to establish a wonderful system of boxes screwed upon railway carriages and in steamboat cabins, all which boxes could be opened by the same keys; and agents were appointed to transfer the chronometers at the proper places'. GA has marked out all that he intends doing with regard to the Irish tides - 'I have analysed every one of my 1300 tides' and he gives an overview of some of the more 'curious' conclusions he has drawn.