MAXWELL, Professor James Clerk (1831-1879)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP71
Held at	: King's College London College Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/archivespec/ ›
Full title	: MAXWELL, Professor James Clerk (1831-1879)
Date(s)	: 1860-1872
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 3 volumes
Name of creator(s)	: Maxwell | James Clerk Maxwell | 1831-1879 | Professor of Physics
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born 1831; student, University of Edinburgh, 1847-1850; Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1850; Trinity College, Cambridge, 1850-1854; Fellow of Trinity, 1855; Professor of Natural Philosophy, Marischal College, Aberdeen, 1856-1860; Professor of Natural Philosophy, King's College London, 1860-1865; private studies, 1865-1871; Professor of Experimental Physics, University of Cambridge, 1871-1879; died, 1879.

Publications: On the stability of the motion of Saturn's rings (Cambridge, 1859); Introductory lecture on experimental physics (London and Cambridge, 1871); A treatise on electricity and magnetism, 2 vols (1873); edited The electrical researches of the Honourable Henry Cavendish (Cambridge, 1879)

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Collection comprising three manuscript notebooks of theoretical problems relating to mechanics compiled by James Clerk Maxwell mainly during his employment at King's College London, including exam questions on aspects of mechanics and geometry, 1860-1865; problems on the collision of elastic spheres and the dynamic relation between other solid bodies; the refraction of light; the relationship between heat and volume in materials; attraction between particles, 1860-1873; notes on the works of leading authorities on mathematics and physics including Arthur Cayley, Franz Neumann and Siméon Poisson, 1867-1873; bibliography of textbooks mainly on mechanics, [1860-1865]; list of scientific instrument suppliers, [1860-1865]; outline of the contents of Maxwell's Treatise on electricity and magnetism (1873).

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Director of Archive Services.

Finding aids:

Summary guide entry and detailed catalogue available online and in hard copy in the King's College Archives Reading Room.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Presented to King's College London by the executors of Sir George Greenhill, 1927.

Allied Materials

Related material:

King's College London College Archives holds further entries relating to Maxwell's career in King's College Council Minutes (Ref: KA/C/M), In-Correspondence (Ref: K/IC), photographs (Ref: K/PHOTO), King's College Maxwell Society papers (Ref: KSM), and papers relating to the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation (Ref: K/PP 45).

Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives: correspondence and papers, 1847-1879 (Ref: Add 7655); correspondence with Peter Guthrie Tait, letters to Lord Kelvin, 1854-1879; Cambridge University, Peterhouse Library: family correspondence and miscellaneous papers, 1845-1879; National Library of Scotland, Manuscripts division: paper presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1846; Glasgow University Library, Special Collections Department: letters to Lord Kelvin, 1857-1873; London Metropolitan Archives: correspondence with Cecil James Monro (Ref: Acc 1063/2078-2110); St Andrews University Library: correspondence with James David Forbes, 1855-1877.

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Sources: Dictionary of national biography; Cyril Domb ed., Clerk Maxwell and modern science (London, 1963); The manuscript papers of British scientists (HMC, London, 1982); National Register of Archives; British Library OPAC. Entry compiled by Geoff Browell.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
3 August 2000