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RJ explains why he will not be voting in Cambridge at the forthcoming election [see RJ to WW, 11 November 1822]: 'to come and help turn out whichever you may elect at the next election and to be able to do this with a clear conscience it is surely best to give no vote at all now - with a view to this good purpose I hope Scarlett may get in - it will be easy to turn him out and not so easy any of the others[.] as to Herschel [John Herschel] he votes merely because he thinks Peacock [George Peacock] takes the thing to heart whatever other views he may talk about'. With regard to the Saints [the Saints candidate is Grant] - 'respectable and well meaning as some of the leading ones are if ever it is your lot to witness the hypocrisy and fanaticism exhibited while living and while dying by a set of people almost invariably the converts of some silly man who fortifies himself in doing mischief because he thinks he has the countenance of Mssrs - Wilberforce[,] Baring[,] Stephens etc. etc. you would I am sure scrupulously avoid helping to place in any situation of conspicuous weight an individual of their class and whoever or whatever he might be in himself - I think with you that Grant personally is by far the most eligible of the four but I earnestly hope he may not be successful'.

Letter dated 15 May [1847] written from The Deanery, Ely.

WW is pleased 'to hear again of an old and favourite scheme' [to set up a Journal], asks if there is an opening for him, if it is to have a political or religious bent, and if not if it would be successful, if it would not take up too much time, if the reviewers have enough information and experience in the world, and thinks the project should wait a while - if only to gather materials. 'George Peacock talks of a six months' review; upon this hint I suggested a secular review. Marchese Spinetto has been trying to collect a body of Cambridge reviewers. He proposed to Peacock that he and Miles Bland should take the mathematics, which did not at all quadrate with George's notions. I believe the thing has fallen through. I have thought frequently of something like a magazine or periodical collection of essays upon all subjects, scientific, literary, spectatorial, or any other. It would give more liberty than any form. If its circulation at Cambridge were a matter of much importance, I have no doubt that we might annex to it a sufficient quantity of Cambridge mathematics neatly done to make it sell here... The remainder of the publication which should be much the largest part might, I do not doubt, be so written as to do much good here and elsewhere'.

Geneva - Thanks GP for all his suggestions prior to his trip abroad. The letters Lord Palmerston favoured him with have been most useful - especially in avoiding the Prussian custom house. He has been taking many observations in the Alps with his Magnetic and Meteorological apparatus: concentrating on magnetic intensity at heights. To eliminate the effect of temperature on his results he has been conducting experiments on the needles in question at different temperatures. Using John Herschel's actinometer he has taken observations - 'at stations separated by a vertical column of 6500 feet of air' - to determine the loss of force of the solar rays in passing through the atmosphere. Sends his regards to WW and George Airy.

Tithe Office - Mr Williams has a history of writing begging letters and is not altogether unworthy. Charlotte Jones has suffered more attacks of faintness. George Peacock 'has lately shewn an occasional want of worldly tact which has surprised and is just now embarrassing me - He wanted me to go to the Home Office on an errand which would have insured I am laughingly told their sending for a surgeon to bleed me and now he is pressing views about Peel's corn-measure which I think vexatious and wanting me to struggle for a modification of it on the part of the church which I should think a great calamity to the church'. As for the new list of towns, this 'will not affect us to the extent of 10s in the 100s if he or any one else can shew him it will do more Peel will remodel it and yet he wants to establish 2 lists for averages by one of which our incomes would be regulated - by the other prices and rents - I think the plan suicidal'. 'The whig-radicals are chuckling at the prospect of embroiling the church and the landowners and the government on this point and have been making some quiet attempts to convert me into a cats paw for their purpose - I laugh at them but am annoyed about Peacock who I know is sincere and honest'. RJ will 'get Peacocks views submitted to Peel if I can quietly but really I cannot adopt them'.

Thanks Monk for his contribution to the restoration of Ely Cathedral, question as to whether a Canonry was attached to the Archdeaconry of Bristol

Trin. Coll. - HC would only consider offering himself as a candidate for Professor of Mineralogy if neither WW or George Peacock were standing. And as 'you do wish to lay more business on your shoulders, of course there is nothing further to be said'.

RS cannot give any information as yet about lithography. WW's 'barometer only pretends to be comparative and is adjusted by another which is positioned to give yourself no uneasiness upon that head. The Galvanic plates look ugly enough to be very scientific but you know best what use you intend to extract from them. As the barometer and thermometer both require care they must stay here until I can bring them down which will be also as well for the Plates. What day this will be I am not quite certain but I hope on Thursday morning to mount the telegraph'. RS has sent and addressed his circle to WW and it should arrive at Shepherd's Bridge Street on Friday morning. He will bring his own barometer so that WW can compare it with his. Donkin [Bryan Donkin] has finished the Zenith Sector. RS hopes the observatory [Cambridge Observatory] 'may get so far advanced that to recede or limit the plan may be impossible even for the heads'. RS has been testing his instrument: 'Two lines of observations nearly contemporaneous gave me the same error in the chronometer within a second of time but that only proves that the instrument gives the same results and that the fault was not in the observer making the contacts'. RS gives Troughton's [Edward Troughton] answers to George Peacock's questions concerning the Transit.

Concerning the changes to exams.

Two photographs of a chair, taken by W. T. Munns, Gravesend, with three letters: one from James Raine asking his cousin Mary K. Butler for the history of the chair, and two more from Mary, one answering him, and the other forwarding the photographs and letters to Lord Adrian, Master of Trinity.

Album containing over 250 letters, notes, documents, unaccompanied envelopes, printed items, and photographic prints carrying the handwriting and/or autographs of sovereigns, prelates, government ministers, peers, authors, and Trinity College masters and professors, with a few unusual items in addition. The material appears to have been largely culled from the correspondence of George Peacock, his wife Frances Peacock, her father William Selwyn, and her second husband William Hepworth Thompson, with a few unrelated items. Most date from the 19th century but there are a few items from the 18th century.

Among those represented are King George III, Charles Babbage, E.W. Benson, the 15th Earl of Derby, the 7th Duke of Devonshire, W. E. Gladstone, Lord Houghton, Charles Kingsley, H. W. Longfellow, Lord Macaulay, Sir Robert Peel, John Ruskin, Adam Sedgwick, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, and William Whewell; there are in addition a miniature handwritten Lord's Prayer in a circle no larger than 15mm across, a carte-de-visite photograph souvenir 'balloon letter' from the Paris siege of 1870 with an image of the newspaper 'La Cloche', and a photographic print of Lane's portrait of George Peacock.

Trinity College - WW hopes RJ's political economy is soon to appear. What does RJ think of the 'heads having elected Babbage [Charles Babbage elected to the Lucasian Chair] and how do you suppose he will take it?' George Peacock, Higman and WW wrote letters to each of the electors - 'so I shall be vexed if he is not gratified and now that he has no wife he may perhaps better like to live here part of the year'.

Edinburgh - JDF has received both WW's mechanics and moral philosophy [An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, 6th edn., 1841 and Two Introductory Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 1841]. JDF has been reading Sewell's [William Sewell] Christian Morals: 'a very different sort of work - yet one which notwithstanding his ultra views on the church question in which I little if at all sympathize with him, and certain Germanesque mystical analogies near the close, has afforded me matter for useful thought beyond any book I have lately read'. JDF will not make the BAAS meeting at Plymouth. He wants to take another view of the French volcanoes and then join Agassiz [Louis Agassiz] and visit the glaciers. JDF thinks he has 'come to some understanding about the queer planes of polarization of the sky which I will send you a little notice of soon'. He has been examining George Peacock's 'most comprehensive Reforms. The note about private Tutors I presume you agree with'. JDF and his sister are going to move actually into town. Kelland [Philip Kelland] 'has been going on with his wave investigations (I mean water in canals) which seem to afford good results'. JDF has been constructing 'a kind of inverted Pendulum for measuring Earthquake shocks'.