The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First ProfessorsJones, Bence
History
The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First Professors
Jones, Bence
Davy, Humphry, Sir, 1778-1829; Royal Institution of Great Britain; Rumford, Benjamin, Graf von, 1753-1814; Young, Thomas, 1773-1829
The Rev. T. Walker was the first minister of Concord. He was a native
of Woburn and connected with the Thompson family. He was the chief
man in Concord. His son was a colonel and a lawyer, and his daughter,
when about thirty, was married to Colonel Rolfe, who was sixty. She was
left a rich widow in two years, and in the middle of the following year
Thompson came as schoolmaster to Concord. He was not yet quite twenty.
His friend Baldwin describes him ‘as of fine, manly make and figure,
nearly six feet high, with handsome features, bright blue eyes and dark
auburn hair. His manners were polished and his ways fascinating, and
he could make himself agreeable. He had well used his opportunities of
culture, so that his knowledge was beyond that of most of those around
him, and he was able to give satisfaction as a teacher.’
In the country parsonage and at Colonel Walker’s house he frequently
met Mrs. Rolfe, and he told his friend Professor Pictet that she
married him rather than he her. This was about the end of 1772, when he
was nearly twenty. He had to teach no more in school. His marriage made
him one of the chief men in Concord.
After his marriage he went with his wife to Portsmouth, where she
knew Governor Wentworth. ‘He saw in young Thompson not only the
representative of a family already known in the public and social life
of his province, but also a man of much promise, one likely to work
vigorously in whatever he took up.’ The Governor soon gave Thompson a
commission as major in the second provincial regiment of New Hampshire.
The young officer at once became an object of jealousy and ill-will to
all the lieutenants and captains of his regiment. The favour of the
Governor made all his brother officers his enemies.
The following letter to the Rev. Mr. Williams, at Bradford, afterwards
Professor at the college there, shows the influence of Thompson with
the Governor, and also some of his scientific thoughts and aims:
Concord, Monday, January 17, 1773.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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