Abstract
Shortly after Tennyson’s death in 1892, Thomas Huxley wrote to Sir Michael Foster, then Secretary of the Royal Society, asking Was not Tennyson a Fellow of the Royal Society? If so, should not the President and Council take some notice of his death and delegate some one to the funeral to represent them? Very likely you have thought of it already. He was the only modern poet, in fact the only poet since the time of Lucretius, who has taken the trouble to understand the work and tendency of the men of science. The answer to Huxley’s (presumably rhetorical) question was that Tennyson had, indeed, been a Fellow since 1865, with a prominent supporter on the basis of personal knowledge being Huxley himself. According to the election certificate, Tennyson’s qualifications were that he was: ‘Eminent as a Poet and Man of Letters. Attached to Science and anxious to promote its progress’.
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