“My College lectures seem to have been, Oct. 21st to Dec. 14th to 31 Junior Sophs, Dec. 4th to 12th to 12 Senior Sophs.  I assisted at the examinations of the Questionists.  I had no private pupils.  On Nov. 26th I communicated to the Cambridge Philosophical Society a Paper on the Theory of Pendulums, Balances, and Escapements:  and I find applications of Babbage’s symbolism to an escapement which I proposed.  I have various investigations about the Earth, supposed to project at middle latitudes above the elliptical form.  In November an account of the Dolcoath failure (by Whewell) was given to the Royal Society.

“At length on Dec. 7th, 1826, the election to the Lucasian Professorship took place:  I was elected (I think unanimously) and admitted.  I believe that this gave great satisfaction to the University in general.  My uncle, Arthur Biddell, was in Cambridge on that evening, and was the first of my friends who heard of it.  On the same page of my quires on which this is mentioned, there is a great list of apparatus to be constructed for Lucasian Lectures, notes of experiments with Atwood’s Machine, &c.  In December, correspondence with Dollond about prisms.  I immediately issued a printed notice that I would give professorial lectures in the next Term.

“On Dec. 13th I have a letter from Mr Smith informing me of the dangerous illness (fever) which had attacked nearly every member of his family, Richarda worst of all.  On Dec. 23rd I went to Bury.  The affairs with Cropley had been settled by the sale of his property under execution, and my father did not lose much of his debt.  But he had declined much in body and mind, and now had strange hallucinations.

“The commencement of 1827 found me in a better position (not in money but in prospects) than I had before stood in:  yet it was far from satisfactory.  I had resigned my Assistant Tutorship of L150 per annum together with the prospect of succeeding to a Tutorship, and gained only the Lucasian Professorship of L99 per annum.  I had a great aversion to entering the Church:  and my lay fellowship would expire in 7 years.  My prospects in the law or other professions might have been good if I could have waited:  but then I must have been in a state of starvation probably for many years, and marriage would have been out of the question:  I much preferred a moderate income in no long time, and I am sure that in this I judged rightly for my happiness.  I had now in some measure taken science as my line (though not irrevocably), and I thought it best to work it well, for a time at least, and wait for accidents.

“The acceptance of the Lucasian Professorship prevented me from being pressed by Sedgwick (who was Proctor this year) to take the office of moderator:  which was a great relief to me.  As Lucasian Professor I was ipso facto Member of the Board of Longitude.  A stipend of L100 a year was attached to this, on condition of attending four meetings:  but I had good reason (from intimations by South and other persons in London) for believing that this would not last long.  The fortnightly notices of the meetings of the Board were given on Jan. 18th, Mar. 22nd, May 24th and Oct. 18th.