[Letter] 1823 December 22, Royal Institution [to] J. Harrison / M[ichael] Faraday.

Faraday writes to make arrangements to visit the Penetentiary to get a sense of its layout so that he can determine the best plan for fumigating it. He states that "Sir H. Davy directs me to fumigate it very abundantly and perfectly that no question may arise at a future time as to any remains of infectious material in the place." A philosopher as well as a scientist, Faraday experimented with electricity, chemistry, radiation, and physics. Sir Humphrey Davy, whose influence secured Faraday his first position as a laboratory assistant at the Royal Institution, was his mentor, and his contemporary John Tyndall (whose work, along with Davy's, is also represented in the collection) wrote Faraday's biography in 1872. Faraday became director of the laboratory in the Royal Institution in 1825 where he devised a lecture series, taught chemistry at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, became a fellow of the Royal Society as well as a scientific adviser to the Corporation of Trinity House, and his portrait appears on the Bank of England's twenty-pound note.