Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1906-1944 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
1 volume (26 x 21 cm), containing 156 original leaves and 4 flyleaves (2 at the front and 2 at the back) added when the book was conserved, a printed sheet pasted to f. 55v, and a number of papers (6 single sheets, 2 folded sheets, 1 card, and 1 slip) inserted loose. Folios 1–155 are ruled, and there are stubs after ff. 36 and 145. Quarter-bound in red leather and dark blue cloth.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Arthur Stanley Eddington was born in 1888 into a Quaker family, and remained of that religion all his life. He was educated at Brynmelyn School, Weston-super-Mare, and Owen’s College, Manchester, before coming up to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1902. He graduated in 1905 and spent a short time in Cambridge as a mathematical coach, but in 1906 went to Greenwich as Chief Assistant to the Astronomer Royal. He returned to Cambridge in 1913 as Plumian Professor of Astronomy, and the following year was also appointed Director of the Cambridge Observatory. He held these posts for the rest of his life. Eddington’s most significant scientific contributions were to the study of the structure and movements of stars, the implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the search for a ‘fundamental theory’ to unite the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Repository
Archival history
According to the accessions register this book was presented to the Library in December 1958 by E. J. Elliot, and on the front pastedown has been written in pencil, probably at the time it was received, ‘Presented by E. J. Elliott [sic] Esq. Matr. 1902’. The donor, Edward James Elliot, was a Trinity contemporary and friend of Eddington who became a civil servant at the Board of Trade. Elliot was bracketed 19th Wrangler in Part I of the Mathematical Tripos in 1904, when Eddington was Senior Wrangler, and Elliot and Eddington were the founding members, with C. J. A. Trimble, of an informal reading group at Trinity known as the ‘E. J. Elliot Literary Society’ (see p. 36 of this volume). This sufficiently explains Elliot’s interest in Eddington, but it is unclear how he obtained the book, which was clearly in Eddington’s own possession up to the year of his death. On the front of the volume is pasted a piece of paper labelled, ‘Eddington’s own writing. (diary)’. This was evidently added sometime between Eddington’s death and the presentation of the volume to Trinity, but it is unclear whether it was written by Elliot or someone else. Passages of the journal section have been marked up in pencil, apparently for printing, but again it is unclear by whom. Some of the pencil additions were evidently posthumous, as they include a reference to the work Fundamental Theory, published in 1946 (f. 150r).
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The book contains various autobiographical lists and a journal, of varying detail, describing Eddington’s activities in the years from 1905 to 1914. The first inscriptions in it were evidently made in 1905, though it includes some information from earlier years. See the separate descriptions of the individual inscriptions and inserted material.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
The original leaves are foliated i, 1–155. The numbering of leaves 1–153 is original.