MAXWELL (James Clerk, 1831-1879, Physicist)

Autograph Letter Signed to Mrs PAGET, presumably wife of Sir James Paget (Sir James, 1814-1899, Surgeon, Organiser of the modern Medical School at St. Bartholomew's Hospital) saying that he is expecting a "visit from Colin Mackenzie nephew of Bishop Charles Mackenzie and it would give Mrs Clerk Maxwell and me much pleasure if you, Dr Paget and Miss Paget would dine with us ...", with a note in another hand "accepted", 1 side 8vo., 11 Scroope Terrace, 5th January

In a relatively short life, Clerk Maxwell made fundamental advances, not least in propounding the field theory of electromagnetism expressed in mathematical equations, as important as Newton's had been in mechanics and gravitation, and leading to light as an electromagnetic wave and on to wireless waves. From 1865 Maxwell had worked mostly on his estate at Glenlair, but in 1871 had accepted the post of first Cavendish professor at Cambridge. With the Duke of Devonshire, he was in the middle of setting up the famous laboratory, opened in 1874.
Letters by James Clerk Maxwell are scarce.

Item Date:  1878

Stock No:  40529