John Tyndall

Author Code: IJTX

Tyndall attended local schools, but had a limited academic background before taking a position as draughtsman with the Irish Ordnance Survey in 1839. In 1842, he took a similar position with the English Ordnance Survey. He became a railway engineer in 1844 and three years later took a teaching position at Queenswood College in Hampshire. From 1848 to 1851, he attended the University of Marburg where he received his doctorate. In 1848, he also published Crystals, a work that gave him exposure in the scientific community. In 1853, he was appointed to the chair of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution where he worked with Michael Faraday. Having become close friends with Thomas Huxley, the two traveled to the Swiss Alps in 1856 and subsequently published a joint paper, On the Structure and Motion of Glaciers. In 1862, on the death of Faraday, Tyndall became the Director of the Royal Institution. He toured America on the lecture circuit in 1872-1873 and did much to popularize science. He married Louisa Hamilton in 1876 and in 1885 they moved to Surrey. Tyndall's health began to deteriorate and he also suffered from insomnia. His wife accidentally administered a lethal dose of chloral hydrate which caused his death in 1893. Tyndall was one of the most eminent and influential scientists of the Victorian era and made numerous contributions to various scientific fields. His many and diverse works include The Glaciers of the Alps (1860)< Mountaineering (1861), Heat as a Mode of Motion (1863), On Radiation (1863), Faraday as a Discoverer (1868), Lectures on Light (1873), Sound (1875), Fragments of Science (1879) and New Fragments (1892).