CHAPTER VI
ROSCOE AS A TEACHER
Some years before Owens College attained to the position of a university, several attempts were made to induce Roscoe to sever his connection with it. In 1870 he was offered the lectureship on Chemistry at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in succession to Dr. Matthiessen.
The following letter under date October 14, 1870, refers to this circumstance:
…
I have just refused to go to London again! They wanted me at St. Bartholomew’s.
Miller is to be succeeded by ⸺ ⸺, and it appears that this gentleman has made a compromise with the New School, and is to adopt O = 12! Is not this rich? Originality at King’s was always at a discount, but then Orthodoxy reigns supreme, and this is the “Wahre Jakob,” as they say in German!
Lockyer is down here visiting Stewart, and I had a physical and astronomical party here last night (my wife being away), at which a large number of interesting new observations on the heavenly bodies and on science in general were made, which did not conclude until the small hours.
I cannot buckle to the new book—but I have arranged the order of things to my tolerable satisfaction. Whether it will ever see the daylight remains a mystery.…