The note accompanying these papers (B4/8) begins as follows: ‘This card folder contains a small number of loose and partly unidentified sheets that were separated from the otherwise orderly arrangement of the Eddington papers that had been in the hands of Professor N. B. Slater.’ There follows a brief description of the three letters (B4/5–7) and the sheets in Eddington’s hand (B4/1–9). Eddington’s manuscripts have been listed as nine items. The first (B4/1) forms a sequence of four sheets numbered from 36 to 39, formerly stapled together, as Dewhirst’s note records. The first sheet was marked by Slater in red biro: ‘(Attached to MS §a).’, apparently referring to B3/1, which comprises thirty-five sheets, though the character represented by the section-mark is indistinct. The next three items also appear to form distinct sequences, possibly all from the same doc-ument: B4/2, comprising six sheets numbered from 3 to 8; B4/3, two sheets, of which the second, unnumbered, clearly follows the first, which is numbered 10; and B4/4, comprising two sheets numbered 12 and 13. The remaining five sheets have been listed singly (B4/5–9). The first two of these contain similar tables on the back. The folder, which was simply marked with a ringed ‘A’, has been discarded.
These papers are all manuscripts in Eddington’s hand, with the exception of B3/17, which is typed, and B3/12, which is a carbon copy of a typescript.
These manuscripts are all in Eddington’s own hand, with the exception of the ringed pencil number on the first page of each and the foliation (in red biro, except B2/20), which were added by Slater, the former in June 1945, the latter about the end of 1947. Other notes by Slater indicate that there is a sheet missing from B2/22 between ff. 4 and 5, and that B2/29 f. 14 is a modification of f. 4.
These papers are both in Eddington’s own hand.
These papers are all in Eddington’s own hand. None is explicitly dated.
(Trinity College, Cambridge.)—Comments on Chandrasekhar’s summary of work on convection (A5/4), and relates an amusing incident connected with the recent visit of the Duchess of Kent.
This file contains letters to Eddington’s mother from John W. Graham, Principal of Dalton Hall, the Quaker hall of residence where Eddington lived while he was at Owen’s College, Manchester.
Transcript
Grand Hôtel des Bergues, Genève
3. Jan 1898.
Dear Mrs. Eddington,
I sent you just one bit of my ideas abt. Stanley as soon as he left us. The rest must follow now.
His presence has been a great pleasure to us. You have got a boy mixed of most kindly elements, as perhaps Shakspeare might say {1}. His rapidly and clearly working mind has not in the least spoiled his character. I don’t know when I have had to do with so modest and gentlemanly a boy. It is a testimony to day schools and home training, (not, I am afraid, my favourite theory.)
His youth has, of course, been just a little against his making friends, but has not been fatal to it. In Clayton, & in Wood & Brown he has nice associates; but he seems more contented alone than most boys are.
His work is all that I expected, & more: & I feel altogether that he is “a precious youth” committed to my charge. I can realise to some extent what Margaret would feel like if she were left alone to bring up our own little Richard.
I remain
Your friend sincerely
John W. Graham
—————
The writing-paper is engraved with illustrations of the hotel, etc. The year is wrong, as Eddington did not enter Owen’s College till October 1898 (see his Notebook).
{1} Graham evidently had in mind Antony’s encomium on Brutus at the end of Julius Caesar: ‘His life was gentle, and the elements | So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up | And say to all the world “This was a man!”’
Dated at the Robert A. Millikan Library, California Institute of Technology.
(Pasted inside the back cover is a statement of Eddington’s account with the Clarendon Press in respect of sales of Stars and Atoms during the year ending 31 Mar. 1944.)