Fifty‐Eight Years of Friendship: Kelvin and Stokes

Abstract This chapter focuses on the friendship between Sir G. G. Stokes and Kelvin. Kelvin was Stokes's principal correspondent over a period of fifty-six years. The correspondence between the two provide valuable insight not only into the research and research methods of two giants of 19th-century British science, but also into the day-to-day running of Cambridge and Glasgow Universities and of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh at a critical time in their histories. The family backgrounds and formative influences of Kelvin and Stokes, their life in Cambridge, their early research correspondence, professorships, marriages, and political activities are discussed.