Chapter V: Part 5

The most noticeable death in the photographic world of this year was that of Henry Fox Talbot. He was born on February the 11th, 1800, and died September 17th, 1877, thus attaining a ripe old age. I am not disposed to deny his claims to the honour of doing a great deal to forward the advancement of photography, but what strikes me very much is the mercenary spirit in which he did it, especially when I consider the position he occupied, and the pecuniary means at his command. In the first place, he rushed to the Patent Office with his gallo-nitrate developer, and then every little improvement or modification that he afterwards made was carefully protected by patent rights. With a churlishness of spirit and narrow-mindedness it is almost impossible to conceive or forgive, he tried his utmost to stop the formation of the London Photographic Society, and it was only after pressing solicitations from Sir Charles Eastlake, President of the Royal Academy, and first President of the London Photographic Society, that he withdrew his objections. The late Peter le Neve Foster, Secretary of the Society of Arts, told me this years after, and when it was proposed to make Fox Talbot an honorary member of the Photographic Society, Mr. Foster was opposed to the proposition. Then the action that he brought against Sylvester Laroche was unjustifiable, for there really was no resemblance between the collodion and calotype means of making a negative, except in the common use of the camera, and the means of making prints was the same as that employed by Thomas Wedgwood, while the fixing process with hyposulphite of soda was first resorted to by the Rev. J. B. Reade, on the published information of Sir John Herschel.

On March 29th, 1878, Mr. Charles Bennett published his method of increasing the sensitiveness of gelatino-bromide plates. It may be briefly described as a prolonged cooking of the gelatine emulsion at a temperature of 90 deg., and, according to Mr. Bennett's experience, the longer it was cooked the more sensitive it became, with a corresponding reduction of density when the prepared plates were exposed and developed.

April 20th of this year Mr. J. A. Spencer died, after a lingering illness, of cancer in the throat. Mr. Spencer was, at one period in the history of photography, the largest manufacturer of albumenized paper in this country, and carried on his business at Shepherd's Bush. In 1866 he told me that he broke about 2,000 eggs daily, merely to obtain the whites or albumen. The yolks being of no use to him, he sold them, when he could, to glove makers, leather dressers, and confectioners, but they could not consume all he offered for sale, and he buried the rest in his garden until his neighbours complained of the nuisance, so that it became ultimately a very difficult thing for him to dispose of his waste yolks in any manner. After the introduction of Swan's improved carbon process, he turned his attention to the manufacture of carbon tissue, and in a short time he became one of the partners in the Autotype Company, and the name of the firm at that period was Spencer, Sawyer, and Bird; but he ceased to be a partner some time before his death.

At the South London Technical Meeting, held in the great hall of the Society of Arts, I exhibited my non-actinic developing tray, and developed a gelatine dry plate in the full blaze of gas-light. A short extract from a leader in the _Photographic News_ of November 14th, 1879, will be sufficient to satisfy all who are interested in the matter. "Amongst the many ingenious appliances exhibited at the recent South London meeting, none excited greater interest than the developing tray of Mr. Werge, in which he developed in the full gas-light of the room a gelatine plate which had been exposed in the morning, and exhibited to the meeting the result in a clean transparency, without fog, or any trace of the abnormal action of light.... We can here simply record the fact, interesting to many, that the demonstration before the South London meeting was a perfect success."

1880 had a rather melancholy beginning, for on January the 15th, Mr. George Wharton Simpson died suddenly, which was a great shock to every one that knew him. I had seen him only a few days before in his usual good health, and he looked far more like outliving me than I him; besides, he was a year my junior. The extract above quoted was the last time he honoured me by mentioning my name in his writings, though he had done so many times before, both pleasantly and in defending me against some ill-natured and unwarrantable attacks in the journal which he so ably conducted for twenty years.

Mungo Ponton died August 3rd, 1880. Though his discovery did little or nothing towards the development of photography proper, it is impossible to allow him to pass out of this world without honourable mention, for his discovery led to the creation and development of numerous and important photo-mechanical industries, which give employment to numbers of men and women. When Mungo Ponton announced his discovery in the _Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_ in 1839, he probably never dreamt that it would be of any commercial value, or he might have secured rights and royalties on all the patent processes that grew out of it; for Poitevin's patent, 1855, Beauregard's, 1857, Pouncy's, 1858 and 1863, J. W. Swan's, 1864, Woodbury's, 1866, all the Autotype and Lambertype and kindred patents, as well as all the forms of Collotype printing, are based on Ponton's discovery. But so it is: the originator of anything seldom seeks any advantage beyond the honour attached to the making of a great invention or discovery. It is generally the petty improvers that rush to the Patent Office to secure rights and emoluments, regardless of the claims of the founders of their patented processes.

On March 2nd, 1880, I delivered a lecture on "The Origin, Progress, and Practice of Photography" before the Lewisham and Blackheath Scientific Association, in which I reviewed the development of photography from its earliest inception up to date, exhibited examples, and gave demonstrations before a very attentive and apparently gratified audience.

On the 27th May, 1880, Professor Alfred Swaine Taylor died at his residence, 15, St. James's Terrace, Regent's Park, in his seventy-fourth year. He was born on the 11th December, 1806, at Northfleet in Kent, and in 1823 he entered as a student the united hospitals of Guy's and St. Thomas's, and became the pupil of Sir Astley Cooper and Mr. Joseph Henry Green. His success as a student and eminence as a professor, lecturer, and author are too well-known to require any comment from me on those subjects, but it is not so generally known how much photography was indebted to him at the earliest period of its birth. In 1838 Dr. Taylor published his celebrated work, "The Elements of Medical Jurisprudence," and in 1840 he published a pamphlet "On the Art of Photogenic Drawing," in which he advocated the superiority of ammonia nitrate of silver over chloride of silver as a sensitiser, and hyposulphite of lime over hyposulphite of soda as a fixer, and the latter he advocated up to the year of his death, as the following letter will show:--

"_St. James's Terrace, February 10th, 1880._

"Mr. Werge.

"Dear Sir,--I have great pleasure in sending you for the purpose of your lecture some of my now ancient photographs. They show the early struggles which we had to make. The mounted drawings were all made with the _ammonia nitrate_ of silver; I send samples of the paper used. In general the paper selected contained chloride enough to form ammonia chloride. I send samples of unused paper, procured in 1839--some salted afterwards.

"All these drawings (which are dated) have been preserved by the hyposulphite of _lime_ (not soda). The hypo of lime does not form a definite compound with silver, like soda; hence it is easily washed away, and this is why the drawings are tolerably preserved after forty years. All are on plain paper. Ammonia nitrate does not answer well on albumenized paper. The art of toning by gold was not known in those ancient days, but the faded drawings on _plain paper_, as you will see, admit of restoration, in dark purple, by placing them in a very dilute solution of chloride of gold, and putting them in the dark for twenty-four hours. The gold replaces the reduced silver and sulphide of silver. I send you the only copy I have of my photogenic drawing. Five hundred were printed, and all were sold or given away. Please take care of it. The loose photographs in red tape are scenes in Egypt and Greece, taken about 1850 from wax-paper negatives (camera views) made by Mr. D. Colnaghi, now English Consul at Florence. If you can call here I shall be glad to say more to you on the matter.--Yours truly,

"Alfred S. Taylor."

The above was the last of many letters on photographic matters that I had received from Dr. Taylor, and the last time I had the pleasure of seeing him was when I returned the photographs and pamphlet alluded to therein, only a short time before his death. Dr. Taylor never lost his interest in photography, and was always both willing and pleased to enter into conversation on the subject. He had worked at photography through all its changes, despite his many professional engagements, from its dawn in 1839, right up to the introduction of gelatino-bromide dry plates, and in 1879 he came and sat to me for his portrait on one of what he called "these wonderful dry plates," and watched the process of development with as much interest as any enthusiastic tyro would have done, and I am proud to say that I had the pleasure of taking the portrait and exhibiting the process of development of the latest aspect of photography to one of its most enthusiastic and talented pioneers.

Dr. Taylor was a man of remarkable energy and versatility. He was a prolific writer and an admirable artist. On his walls were numerous beautiful drawings, and his windows were filled with charmingly illusive transparencies, all the work of his own hands; and once, when expressing my wonder that he could find time to do so many things, he remarked that "a man could always find time to do anything he wished if his heart was with his work." Doubtless it is so, and his life and what he did in it were proofs of the truth and wisdom of his observation.

Hydroquinone as a developer was introduced this year by Eder and Toth, but it did not make much progress at first. It is more in use now, but I do not consider it equal to oxalate of iron.

A considerable fillip was, this year, given to printing on gelatino-bromide paper by the issue of "The Argentic Gelatino-Bromide Worker's Guide," published by W. T. Morgan and Co. The work was written by John Burgess, who made and sold a bromide emulsion some years before, and it contained some excellent working instructions. In the book is a modification and simplification of J. M. Burgess's Eburneum Process, though that process was the invention of Mr. J. Burgess, of Norwich; but a recent application of the gelatino-bromide emulsion to celluloid slabs by Mr. Fitch has made the Ivorytype process as simple and certain as the exposure and development of gelatino-bromide paper.

On January 30th, 1881, died Mr. J. R. Johnson, of pantascopic celebrity. Mr. Johnson was the inventor of many useful things, both photographic and otherwise. He was the chief promoter of the Autotype Company, in which the late Mr. Winsor was so deeply interested; and his double transfer process, published in 1869, contributed greatly to the successful development and practice of the Carbon process. The invention of the Pantascopic Camera, and what he did to forward the formation of the Autotype Company and simplify carbon printing, may be considered the sum total of his claim to photographic recognition.

The chief photographic novelty of 1881 was Mr. Woodbury's Stannotype process, a modification and simplification of what is best known as the Woodburytype. Instead of forcing the gelatine relief into a block of type-metal by immense pressure to make the matrix, he "faced" a reversed relief with tin-foil, thus obtaining a printing matrix in less time and at less expense. I have seen some very beautiful examples of this process, but somehow or other it is not much employed.

The man who unquestionably made the first photographic portrait died on the 4th of January, 1882, and I think it is impossible for me to notice that event without giving a brief description of the circumstance, even though I incur the risk of telling to some of my readers a tale twice told. When Daguerre's success was first announced in the Academy of Science in 1839, M. Arago stated that Daguerre had not yet succeeded in taking portraits, but that he hoped to do so soon. The details of the process were not published until July, and in the autumn of that year Dr. Draper succeeded in obtaining a portrait of his assistant, and that was the first likeness of a human being ever known to have been secured by photography. It would be interesting to know if that Daguerreotype is in existence now. Dr. Draper was Professor of Chemistry in the University of New York, and as soon as the news of the discovery reached New York he fitted an ordinary spectacle lens into a cigar case, and commenced his experiments first by taking views out of a window, and afterwards by taking portraits. To shorten the time of exposure for the latter, he whitened the faces of his sitters. In April, 1840, Dr. Draper and Professor Morse opened a portrait gallery on the top of the University Buildings, New York, and did a splendid business among the very best people of the City at the minimum price of five dollars a portrait, and they would be very small even at that price.

One more of the early workers in photography died this year on the 4th of March. Louis Alphonse Poitevin was not a father of photography in a creative sense, but, like Walter Woodbury, an appropriater of photography in furthering the development of photo-mechanical printing. His first effort in that direction was to obtain copper plates, or moulds, from Daguerreotype pictures by the aid of electrical deposits, and he discovered a method of photo-chemical engraving, for which he was awarded a silver medal by the Societe d'Encouragement des Arts, but the process was of no practical value. His chief and most valuable experiments were with gelatine and bichromates, and his labours in that direction were rewarded by the receipt of a considerable portion of the Duc de Luynes's prize for permanent photographic printing processes, which consisted of photo-lithography and Collotype printing. Born in 1819, he was sixty-three years old when he died.

A useful addition to the pyrogallic acid developer was this year given by Mr. Herbert B. Berkeley. Hitherto, nearly all pyro-developed gelatine plates were stained a deep yellow colour by the action of ammonia, but the use of sulphite of soda, as suggested by Mr. Berkeley, considerably lessened this evil.

In 1883, Captain Abney rendered a signal service to the members of the Photographic Society, and photographers in general, by publishing in the Journal of the Society a translation of Captain Pizzighelli and Baron A. Hubl's booklet on platinotype. After giving a _resume_ of the early experiments with platinum by Herschel, Hunt, and others, the theory and practice of platinotype printing are clearly explained, and it was undoubtedly due to the publication of this translation that platinotype printing was very much popularised. In proof of the accuracy of this opinion, every following photographic exhibition showed an increasing number of exhibits in platinotype.

No great novelty was brought into the world of photography in 1884, but there were signs of a steady advance, and an increasing number of workers with dry plates. I should not, however, neglect allusion to the publication of Dr. H. W. Vogel's experiments with eosine, cyanocine, and other kindred bodies by which he increased the sensitiveness of both wet collodion and gelatine plates to the action of the yellow rays considerably (_vide_ Journal of Society, May 30th). The Berlin Society for the Advancement of Photography acquired and published these experiments for the general good, and yet Tailfer and Clayton obtained patent right monopolies for making eosine gelatine plates in France, Austria, and England. This proceeding seems very much akin to the sharp practice displayed by Mr. Beard in securing a patent right monopoly in the Daguerreotype process which was _given to the world_ by the French Government in 1839. Germany very properly refused to grant a patent under these circumstances.

On April 14th, 1885, Mr. Walter Bird read a paper at the meeting of the Photographic Society of Great Britain, "On the Photographic Reproductions of Pictures in the National Gallery," by A. Braun et Cie. I was present, and it appeared to me that the "effects" in some of the pictures exhibited were not produced by any chemical mode of translation of colour, but by some method of after-treatment of the negative which was more likely to be by skilled labour than by any chemical process. This belief induced me to read a paper at the next meeting--May 12th--"On the After-Treatment of Negatives," in which I showed what could be done both by chemical means and art-labour to assist photography in translating the monographic effects of colour more in accordance with the scale of luminosity adopted and adhered to by the most eminent engravers both in line and mezzotint.

At the next meeting--June 9th--Mr. J. R. Sawyer reopened the discussion on the above subject by reading a paper and exhibiting examples of his own experiments, and Mr. Sawyer admitted that he was "bound to confess that while every effort should be made to discover chemical combinations which will give the utmost value that can be practicably obtained in the reproduction (?) of colours, yet that, in all probability, art--and art not inferior to that of a competent engraver--will be necessary to assist photography in rendering the very subtle combinations of colour that present themselves in a fine painting;" and Colonel H. Stuart Wortley proved that the copy of Turner's "Old Temeraire" was not only "retouched," but wrongly translated, as the various shades of yellow in the original picture were represented in the copy as if they had been all of the same tint. Mr. Sawyer made use of the phrase "reproduction of colours," but that was an error. He should have said--and undoubtedly meant--translation of colours, for photography is, unfortunately, incapable of reproducing colours. Among Mr. Sawyer's examples was a curious and contradictory evidence that isochromatic plates translated yellow tints better than ordinary bromide plates, yet wrongly, for three different shades of yellow were translated as if they had been all one tint. I had noticed this myself when copying paintings and coloured prints, but in photographing the natural colours of fruits and flowers the result was different, and I attributed the mal-translation of pigment yellows to the amount of white with which they had been mixed by the painter. Be that as it may, I always obtained the best translation from natural colours, and a group of flowers which contained a beautiful sulphur coloured dahlia illustrates and confirms this statement in a most remarkable and satisfactory manner. It is, therefore, the more to be regretted that there is any restriction placed upon the individual experiment and development of this interesting aspect of photography.

This was the year of The International Inventions Exhibition, and the photographic feature of which was the historical collection exhibited by some of the members of the Photographic Society of Great Britain, and I think that collection was sufficiently interesting to justify my giving, in these pages, the entire list as published in the _Photographic Journal_:--

"We subjoin a full and complete statement of the whole of the exhibits, with the names of the contributors:--

"Capt. Abney, R.E., F.R.S.--Papyrotype process, executed at the School of Military Engineering, Chatham.

"W. Andrews--Wet collodion negatives, intensified by the Schlippes salt method.

"T. and R. Annan--Calotype process (negative and print), taken by D. O. Hill.

"F. Beasley, jun.--Collodio-albumen negatives.

"W. Bedford--One of Archer's first cameras for collodion process, stereoscopic arrangement by Archer to fit a larger camera.

"Valentine Blanchard--Instantaneous views, wet collodion, 1856-65. Illustrations of a method of enlargement, as proposed by V. Blanchard, 1873. Modification of the Brewster stereoscope by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"Bullock (Bros.)--Photo-lithography, 1866 (Bullock's patent).

"T. Bolas, F.C.S.--Detective camera, 1876. Negative photograph on bitumen, made insoluble by the action of light. Carbon negatives stripped by Wenderoth's process.

"E. Clifton--Portrait of Daguerre. Crystallotype by J. R. Whipple, 1854. Specimens from "Pretsch" photo-galvano-graphic plates, 1856.

"T. S. Davis, F.C.S.--A combined preparation and wash bottle for gelatine emulsion. Adjustable gauge for cutting photographic glasses.

"De la Rue and Co.--Surface printing from blocks executed by Paul Pretsch, 1860.

"W. England--Old Daguerreotype developing box. Old ditto sensitising box. Old camera, 1860, with rapid inside shutter. Instantaneous views in Paris, wet collodion, 1856-65.

"Edinburgh Photographic Society--Archer's water lens.

"James Glaisher, F.R.S.--Nature printing, taken over thirty years ago.

"G. Fowler Jones--Prints from negatives by Le Gray's ceroline process.

"R. Kennett--Skaife's pistolgraph. Globe lens.

"Dr. Maddox--Some of the earliest gelatino-bromide negatives, by the originator of the process, 1871.

"Mudd and Son--Collodio-albumen negatives.

"R. C. Murray--Early Talbotype photographs, 1844-45.

"H. Neville--Camera with Sutton's patent panoramic lens.

"Mrs. H. Baden Pritchard--Impressions from pewter plates of heliographic drawing, by Nicephore Niepce, 1827. Original letter, by Nicephore Niepce, sent to the Royal Society, 1827. View of Kew, taken by Nicephore Niepce, 1827.

"H. P. Robinson--Heliographic picture, by Nicephore Niepce, 1826. Photo-etched plate (from a print), by Niepce in 1827. Heliograph (from a print), by Niepce, 1827. One of the earliest printing-frames, made for Fox Talbot's photogenic drawing, 1839. The first nitrate of silver bath used by Scott Archer in his discovery of the collodion process, 1850.

"Ross and Co.--One of Archer's earliest fluid lenses. The first photographic compound portrait lens, made by Andrew Ross, 1841. Photographic camera, believed to be the first made in England.

"Sands and Hunter--Old lens, with adjustable diaphragm, by Archer, 1851. Old stereoscopic camera, with mechanical arrangement for transferring plates to and from the dark slide.

"T. L. Scowen--Parallel bar stereoscopic camera. Latimer Clarke.

"John Spiller, F.C.S., F.I.C.--The first preserved plates (three to twenty-one days), 1854. Illustrations of the French Pigeon Post.

"J. W. Swan, F.C.S.--Electro intaglios from carbon reliefs (Thorwalsden's "Night and Morning"). Photo-mezzotints were taken from these in gelatinous inks, 1860, by J. W. Swan, by the process now known as Woodburytype. Plaster cast from a carbon print of Kenilworth, showing the relief, taken in 1864, by J. W. Swan. Carbon prints twenty years old (photographed and printed in various colours by J. W. Swan). Old print (in red) by T. and R. Annan, by Swan's process. Carbon print, twenty years old (printed in 1864) by double transfer.

"B. B. Turner--Talbotype. Negatives and prints from same. Single lens made by Andrew Ross, 1851.

"J. Werge--Examples of printing with various metals on plain paper, 1839-42. The Fathers of Photography. Examples and dates of the introduction of early photographs. Daguerreotype, 1839. Collodion positive, 1851. Ambrotype, 1853. Ferrotype, 1855.

"W. Willis, Jun.--Specimen of aniline process. Historical illustrations of the development of the platinotype process.

"W. B. Woodbury--Photo-relief printing process. Woodbury mould and Woodburytype print from same, 1866. Stannotype printing-press, with mould. Machine for measuring reliefs. Woodbury lantern slides. Early Daguerreotype on copper. Positive photograph on glass. Woodbury balloon camera. Microscopical objects in plaster from gelatine reliefs. Woodbury collographic process. Woodbury photo-chromograph system, coloured from the back, 1869. Woodbury actinometer. Despatch-box camera. Watermark or photo-filigrain process. Transparency on gelatine. The first specimen of Woodbury printing exhibited, including the first mould printed from, and also proofs backed with luminous paint.

"Colonel H. Stuart Wortley--Early photo-zincographs, 1861-2. Experimental prints with uranium collodion, 1867 (modification of Wothly's process). Set of apparatus complete for making gelatine emulsion, and preparing gelatine plates, 1877-8. No. 1. Apparatus for cutting gelatine plates either by hand-turning or treadle. No. 2. Stove for keeping emulsion warm for any time at a fixed temperature in pure air, and for the final drying of the plates. No. 3. Apparatus for squeezing emulsion out into water. No. 4. Apparatus for mixing emulsion. Instantaneous shutter, with horizontal motion by finger or pneumatic tube; adjustable wings for cutting off sky, and varying length of exposure."

It is a very remarkable circumstance that none of the contributors to that historical collection could include among their interesting exhibits portraits of either Nicephore Niepce or Frederick Scott Archer. Among my "Fathers of Photography" were portraits of Daguerre, Rev. J. B. Reade, Fox Talbot, Dr. Alfred Swaine Taylor, and Sir John Herschel. It was suggested that those historical exhibits should be left at the close of the exhibition to form a nucleus to a permanent photographic exhibition in Kensington Museum. I readily contributed my exhibits towards such a laudable object. They were accepted, and these exhibits may be seen at any time in the West Gallery of the Science Department of the South Kensington Museum.

At the exhibition of the Photographic Society of Great Britain this year, I exhibited "Wollaston's Diaphragmatic Shutter," in my opinion the best snap shutter that ever was invented, but it had two very serious drawbacks, for it was both _heavy_ and _expensive_.

In 1886 more than usual interest was exhibited by photographers in what was misnamed as the isochromatic, or orthochromatic process, and this interest was probably created by the papers read and discussions that followed at the meetings of the Photographic Society in the previous year. Messrs. Dixon and Gray--the latter a young man in the employ of Messrs. Dixon and Son--commenced a series of experiments with certain dyes with the hope of obtaining a truer translation of colour when copying oil paintings or water-colour drawings, a class of work in which they were largely interested, and had obtained a considerable reputation for such reproductions as photography was then capable of rendering, and one of the results of these experiments was exhibited, and obtained a medal, at the exhibition of the Photographic Society in October. Messrs. Dixon and Sons' exhibit was a very surprising one, and created quite a sensation, as nothing equal to it had ever been shown before. The subject was a drawing of a yellow flower and green leaves against a blue ground--the yellow the most luminous, the green next, and the blue the darkest. In ordinary wet or dry plate photography these effects would have been reversed, but by Dixon and Gray's process the relative luminosities of these three colours were almost perfectly translated. Messrs. Dixon and Gray did not publish their process, but prepared existing gelatine dry plates by their method, and sold them at an enhanced price. They were not, however, permitted to supply anyone long, for B. J. Edwards, who had obtained a monopoly of Tailfer and Clayton's patent rights in England, served them with an injunction, or threatened them with legal proceedings, so they discontinued preparing their orthochromatic plates for sale. By some special arrangement they were allowed to prepare plates for their own use, provided they used Edwards' XL dry plates.

It so happened, however, that this proviso was not a hardship, for Mr. Dixon told me himself that he had found Edwards' plates the most suitable for their process. The hardship lay in not being able to apply their own discovery or preparation to any dry plates for sale for the public use and benefit. This prohibition was the more to be regretted because no other commercial isochromatic or orthochromatic plates had or have appeared to possess the same qualities of translation. The suppression of the Dixon and Gray preparation of plates is the more surprising when I find eosine is mentioned in the Clayton and Tailfer claim, whereas Mr. Dixon assured me that eosine was not employed by them. Mr. Edwards only acquired his monopoly and right to interfere with the commercial application of an independent discovery on Nov. 18th, 1886, and there is little to be gained in England by the publication of the experiments of such men as Vogel, Eder, Ives, and Abney, if one man can prevent all others making use of them.

This year death removed from our midst one, and perhaps the greatest, of the martyrs of photography--Sylvester Laroche. This was the man that fought the battle for freedom from the shackles of monopoly. He won the fight, but lost his money, and the photographers of the day failed to make him a suitable recompense. There was one honourable exception, and Mr. Sylvester told me himself that Mr. J. E. Mayall gave him L100 towards his legal expenses. Laroche's surname was Sylvester, but as there was a whole family of that name photographers, he added Laroche to distinguish himself from his brothers. Sylvester Laroche was an artist, and worked very cleverly in pastel, but somehow or other he never appeared to prosper.

Nothing particular marked the photographic record of 1887, but death was busy in removing men who had made their mark both in the early and later days of photography. First, on March 19th, Robert Hunt, the most copious writer on photography in its earlier period. As early as 1844 he published the first edition of his "Researches on Light," in which he was considerably assisted by Sir John Herschel, and it is astonishing to find what a mine of photographic information that early work contains.

The next was Colonel Russell, better known, photographically, as Major Russell. He was born in 1820, and died on May 16th, 1887. He was best known for his tannin process and alkaline developer, with a bromide solution as a restrainer. For a long time his tannin process was very popular among collodion dry plate workers, and very beautiful pictures were taken on Russell's Tannin Plates, but it is many years since they were ruthlessly brushed aside, like all other collodion dry plates, by the now universally employed gelatino-bromide plates or films.

A revival of interest in pinhole photography was awakened this year, and several modes of constructing a pinhole camera were published; but I remember seeing a wonderful picture by a _keyhole_ camera long before I became a photographer. I had called to see an old lady who lived opposite a mill and farm. It was a bright, sunny afternoon, and, when I was leaving, I was astonished to see a beautiful picture of the mill and farm on the wall of the hall. "Ah!" said the old lady; "that's my camera-obscura. When the sun shines on the mill at this time of day, I am sure to have a picture of the mill brought through the keyhole." It was something like this that suggested the camera-obscura to Roger Bacon and Baptista Porta. So it is not necessary to have such a small hole to obtain a picture, but it is necessary to have the smallest hole possible to obtain the _sharpest_ picture.

Pizzighelli's visible platinotype printing paper was introduced this year, and I welcomed it as a boon, for the double reasons of its simplicity and permanency. I had been longing for years for such a process, for I, like Roger Fenton, had come to the conclusion that there was no future for photography, in consequence of the instability of silver prints. They would be much more durable than they are if they were only washed in several changes of warm water, but few people will be at the trouble to do that, some because they don't know the efficacy of warm water, and others because it lowers the tone. An eminent photographer once asked me how to render silver prints permanent; but when I told him there was nothing equal to warm water washing, he exclaimed, "Oh! but that spoils the tone." When a photographer sacrifices durability to tone, he is scarcely acting honestly towards his customers. Admitted that there is nothing so beautiful in photography as a good silver print when it has its first bloom on it, neither is there anything so grievously disappointing as a silver print in its last stage of decay. It is quite time that the _durability_ of a photograph should be the first consideration of every photographer, as well as the amateur. Years ago I proposed and published a plan of raising a fund to induce chemists and scientists to consider the subject, but not a single photographer responded by subscribing his guinea.

A very simple and interesting means of making photographs at night was introduced this year by Dr. Piffard, an amateur photographer of New York, and the extreme simplicity and efficacy of his method was surprising. For good portraiture it is not equal to the electric light, but for family groups, at home occupations or amusements, it is superior, and I have taken such groups with Piffard's magnesium flash-light, which no other means of lighting would have enabled me to produce. I have taken groups of people playing at cards, billiards, and other games in their own homes with the simplest of apparatus, the ordinary lens and camera, plus an old tea tray--but to obtain the best results, the quickest lens and the quickest dry plates should be employed, and I have always found the best position for the light to be on the top of the camera.

1888 is chiefly remarkable for the attempted revival of the stereoscope, and Mr. W. F. Donkin read an interesting and instructive paper on the subject, in which he endeavoured to account for its disappearance, explain its principles, and give an historical account of its early construction, and modern or subsequent improvements. As to its immense popularity thirty to thirty-five years ago, that was due to its novelty, and the marvellous effect of solidity the pictures assumed when viewed in the stereoscope; but it soon ceased to be popular when the views became stale, and people grew tired of looking at them; to keep up the interest they had to be continually buying fresh ones, and of this they soon got tired also; and when hosts saw that their guests were bored with sights so often seen, they put them out of sight altogether, and I fear that nothing will, for the same reasons, bring about a revival of the revolving or any other form of stereoscopes, for views. It is becoming much the same now with lantern slides--possessors and their friends grow weary of the subjects seen so frequently, and hiring instead of buying slides is becoming the practice of those who own an optical lantern.

With stereoscopic portraits it was not so, for there was always a personal and family interest attached to them, and I made a great many stereoscopic portraits by the Daguerreotype process; but even they were somewhat ruthlessly and precipitately displaced when the carte-de-visite mania took possession of the public mind. However, I see no reason why stereoscopic portraiture should not be revived if good pictures were produced on ivoryine, and it appears to me that substance is most suitable for the purpose, as the pictures can be examined either by reflected or transmitted light. Everyone interested in stereoscopic photography should "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest," the late Mr. Donkin's able and instructive paper on "Stereoscopes and Binocular Vision," published in the journal of the Photographic Society, January 27th, 1888. This was unhappily the last paper that Mr. Donkin read at the Photographic Society, for he was unfortunately lost in the Caucasus the following autumn. W. F. Donkin, M.A., F.C.S., F.I.C., was for several years Honorary Secretary of the Photographic Society and of the Alpine Club, and, at the November meeting of the Photographic Society, the President, James Glaisher, F.R.S., made the following remarks on the melancholy event:--"There is, I am sure, but one feeling in regard to the fact that the gentleman who usually sits on my right is not here to-night. Our Secretary, W. F. Donkin, is, I fear, irretrievably lost in the Caucasus. The feeling of every member of this Society is one of respect and esteem towards him. During the time he held the post of Secretary, his uniform courtesy won him the respect of all. I fear we shall see him no more." This fear was afterwards confirmed by the search party, which was headed by Mr. C. T. Dent, President of the Alpine Club. The late Mr. Donkin was both an expert Alpine climber and photographer, and many of his photographs of Alpine scenery have been published and admired.

Every year compels me to record the death of some old and experienced photographer, or some artist associated with photography from its earliest introduction. Among the latter was Norman Macbeth, R.S.A., an eminent portrait painter, who was quick to see and ready to avail himself of the invaluable services of a new art, or means of improving art, both in drawing and detail, and make the newly-discovered power a help in his own labours, and an economiser of the time of his sitters. The first time I had the pleasure of meeting him was in Glasgow in 1855, when he brought one of his sitters to me to be Daguerreotyped, and he preferred a Daguerreotype as long as he could get one, on account of its extreme delicacy and details in the shadows; but he could not obtain any more Daguerreotypes after 1857, for at that time I abandoned the Daguerreotype for ever, and was the last to practise the process in Glasgow, and probably throughout Great Britain.

From the time that Mr. Macbeth commenced taking photographs himself, he took a keen interest in photography to the last, and only about a month before he died, he read an able, instructive, and interesting paper on the "Construction and Requirements of Portrait Art" before the members of the London and Provincial Photographic Association; and that paper should be in the possession, and frequent perusal, of every student of photographic portraiture. Although an artist in feeling and by profession, Mr. Macbeth was no niggard in his praises of artistic photography, and I have frequently heard him expatiate lovingly on the artistic productions of Rejlander, Robinson, and Hubbard; but, like all artists, he abominated retouching, and denounced it in the strongest terms, and regretted its prevalence and practice as destructive of truth, and "truth in photography," he used to say, "was its greatest recommendation."

The annals of 1889--the jubilee year of published and commercial photography--commence with the record of death. On the 21st of January, Mr. John Robert Sawyer died at Naples in the 61st year of his age. Mr. Sawyer had been for many years a member of the Autotype Company, and his foresight and indefatigability were largely instrumental in making that Company a commercial success. It was anything but a success from the time that it was commenced by the late Mr. Winsor and Mr. J. R. Johnson, but from the moment that Mr. J. R. Sawyer became "director of works," the company rapidly became a flourishing concern, and possesses now a world-wide reputation. Mr. Sawyer was one of the early workers in photography, and for several years conducted a photographic business in the city of Norwich. It was there that circumstances induced him to give his attention to some form of permanent photography with the view of employing it to illustrate a work on the carving and sculpture in Norwich Cathedral, particularly the fine work in the roof of the nave. Mr. Sawyer naturally turned his attention, in the first place, to the autotype process, but it was then in its infancy, and the price prohibitory. The collotype process then became his hope and refuge, but that also was in its infancy, and not practised in England. Mr. Sawyer therefore started for Berlin early in 1869, and there met a certain Herr Ghemoser, a clever expert in the collotype process, from whom he obtained valuable information and working instructions. On his return home, Mr. Sawyer laboured at the collotype process until he overcame most of its difficulties, and on January 1st, 1871, he entered into partnership with Mr. Walter Bird, and removed to London with the intention of making the collotype process a feature in the business. Messrs. Sawyer and Bird commenced their London experiences in Regent Street, but on January 1st, 1872, they entered into an agreement with the Autotype Fine Art Company to work the collotype process as a branch of their business. Meanwhile, another partner, Mr. John Spencer, had joined the firm, and at the end of that year Messrs. Spencer, Sawyer, Bird and Co. purchased the Autotype patents, plant, and stock at Ealing Dene, and all its interest in the wholesale trade; and, in 1874, they bought up the whole of the Fine Art business, including the stock in Rathbone Place, and became the Autotype Company.

The great photographic feature of this year was the Convention held on August 19th in St. James's Hall, Regent Street, London, in celebration of the jubilee of practical photography, which was inaugurated by the delivery of an address by the president, Mr. Andrew Pringle. The address was a fairly good resume of all that had been done for the advancement of photography during the past fifty years.

The exhibition of photographs was somewhat of a failure; little was shown that possessed any historical interest, and that little was contributed by myself. There was a considerable display of apparatus of almost every description, but there was nothing that had not been seen, or could have been seen, in the shops of the exhibitors.

The papers that were read were of considerable interest, and imparted no small amount of information, especially Mr. Thos. R. Dallmeyer's on "False Rendering of Photographic Images by the Misapplication of Lenses"; Mr. C. H. Bothamley's on "Orthochromatic Photography with Gelatine Plates"; Mr. Thomas Bolas's on "The Photo-mechanical Printing Methods as employed in the Jubilee Year of Photography"; but by far the most popular, wonderful, and instructive, was Professor E. Muybridge's lecture, with illustrations, on "The Movements of Animals." The sight of the formidable batteries of lenses was startling enough, but when the actions of the horse, and other animals, were shown in the "Zoopraxiscope," the effect on the sense of sight was both astounding and convincing, and I began to marvel how artists could have lived and laboured in the wrong direction for so many years, especially when the lecturer showed that a prehistoric artist had scratched on a bone a rude but truthful representation of an animal in motion. Both the sight and intelligence of that prehistoric artist must have been keener than the senses of animal painters of the nineteenth century.

Taking it all in all, the Jubilee Convention was an immense success, and brought photographers and amateurs to London from the most distant parts of the country. Looking round the Hall on the opening night, and scanning the features of those present, I was coming to the conclusion that I was the oldest photographer present, when I espied Mr. Baynham Jones, a man of eighty-three winters, and certainly the oldest amateur photographer living; so I willingly ceded the honour of seniority to him, and as soon as he espied me he clambered over the rails to come and sit at my side and talk over the past, and quite unknown to many present, aspects and difficulties of photography. Mr. Baynham Jones was an enthusiastic photographer from the very first, for in 1839, as soon as Daguerre's process was published, he made himself a camera out of a cigar-box and the lens of his opera-glass, and, being unable to obtain a Daguerreotype plate in the country, he cut up a silver salver and worked away on a solid silver plate until he succeeded in making a Daguerreotype picture. Mr. Baynham Jones was not the first photographer in this country, for the Rev. J. B. Reade preceded him by about two years; but I have not the slightest doubt of his being the first _Daguerreotypist_ in England, and in that jubilee year of 1889 he was working with gelatine plates and films, and enthusiastic enough to come all the way from Cheltenham to London to attend the meetings of the Jubilee Convention of Photography.

With this brief allusion to the doings and attractions of the Jubilee Convention, I fear I must bring my reminiscences of photography to a close; but before doing so I feel it incumbent on me to call attention to the fact that _two years_ after celebrating the jubilee of photography we should, paradoxical as it may appear, celebrate its centenary, for in 1791 the first photographic _picture_ that ever was made, seen, or heard tell of, was produced by Thomas Wedgwood, and though he was unable to fix it and enable us to look upon _that_ wonder _to-day_, the honour of being the first photographer, in its truest sense, is unquestionably due to an Englishman. Thomas Wedgwood made photographic pictures on paper, and there they remained until light or time obliterated them; whereas J. H. Schulze, a German physician, only obtained impressions of letters on a semi-liquid chloride of silver in a bottle, and at every shake of the hand the meagre impression was instantly destroyed. If we consider such men as Niepce, Reade, Daguerre, and Fox Talbot the fathers of photography, we cannot but look upon Thomas Wedgwood as the Grand Father, and the centenary of his first achievement should be celebrated with becoming honour as the English centenary of photography.

CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD

OF

INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES, PUBLICATIONS, AND APPLIANCES, FORMING FACTORS IN THE INCEPTION, DISCOVERY, AND DEVELOPMENT OF PHOTOGRAPHY.

1432 B.C. Iron said to have been first discovered.

424 B.C. Lenses made and used by the Greeks. And a lens has been found in the ruins of Nineveh.

79 A.D. Glass known and used by the Romans.

697. Glass brought to England.

1100. Alcohol first obtained by the alchemist, Abucasis.

1287. Nitric acid first obtained by Raymond Lully. Present properties made known by Dr. Priestley, 1785.

1297. Camera-obscura constructed by Roger Bacon.

1400. Chloride of gold solution known to Basil Valentine.

1500. Camera-obscura improved by Baptista Porta.

1555. Chloride of silver blackening by the action of light. Doubtless it was the knowledge of this that induced Thomas Wedgwood and Sir Humphry Davy to make their experiments.

1590. Paper first made in England, at Dartford, Kent, by Sir John Speilman. It is said that the Chinese made paper 170 years B.C.

1646. Magic lantern invented by Athanasius Kircher.

1666. Sir Isaac Newton divided a sunbeam into its seven component parts, and re-constructed the camera-obscura.

1670. Salt mines of Staffordshire discovered.

1727. J. H. Schulze, a German physician, observed that light blackened chalk impregnated with nitrate of silver solution and gold chloride.

1737. Solution of nitrate of silver applied to paper, by Hellot.

1739. Chloride of mercury made by K. Neumann.

1741. Platinum first known in Europe: M. H. St. Claire Deville's new method of obtaining it from the ore, 1859.

1750. J. Dolland, London, first made double achromatic compound lenses.

1757. Chloride of silver made by J. B. Beccarius.

1774. Dr. Priestly discovered ammonia to be composed of nitrogen and hydrogen; but ammonia is as old as the first decomposition of organic matter.

1777. Charles William Scheele observed that the violet end of the spectrum blackened chloride of silver more rapidly than the red end. Chlorine discovered.

1779. Oxalate of silver made by Bergmann.

1789. Uranium obtained from pitch-blende by Klaproth.

1791. Thomas Wedgwood commenced experiments with a solution of nitrate of silver spread upon paper and white leather, and obtained impressions of semi-transparent objects and cast shadows. Sir Humphry Davy joined him later.

1797. Nitrate of silver on silk by Fulhame.

1799. Hyposulphite of soda discovered by M. Chaussier.

1800. John William Ritter, of Samitz, in Silesia, observed that chloride of silver blackened beyond the violet end of the spectrum, thus discovering the action of the ultra violet ray.

1801. Potassium discovered by Sir Humphry Davy.

1802. Examples of Heliotypes, by Wedgwood and Davy, exhibited at the Royal Institution, and process published.

1803. Palladium discovered in platinum by Dr. Wollaston.

1808. Strontium obtained from carbonate of strontia by Sir Humphry Davy.

1812. Iodine discovered by M. D. Curtois, of Paris.

-- Nitrate of silver and albumen employed by D. Fischer.

1813. Ditto investigated by M. Clement.

1814. Joseph Nicephore de Niepce commenced experiments with the hope of securing the pictures as seen in the camera-obscura.

-- Iodide of silver made by Sir H. Davy.

1819. Sir John Herschel published the fact that hyposulphite of soda dissolved chloride and other salts of silver.

1824. Niepce obtained pictures in the camera-obscura upon metal plates coated with asphaltum, or bitumen of Judea.

-- L. G. M. Daguerre commenced his researches.

-- Permanganate of potash. Fromenkerz.

1826. Bromine discovered in sea-water by M. Balard.

-- Bromine of silver made.

1827. Niepce exhibited his pictures in England, and left one or more, now in the British Museum.

1829. Niepce and Daguerre entered into an alliance to pursue their researches mutually.

1832. Evidence of Daguerre employing iodine.

1837. Rev. J. B. Reade, of Clapham, London, obtained a photograph in the solar microscope, and employed tannin as an accelerator and hyposulphite of soda as a fixer for the first time in photography.

1838. Reflecting stereoscope exhibited by Charles Wheatstone.

-- Mungo Ponton observed that light altered and hardened bichromate of potash, and produced yellow photographs with that material. This discovery led to the invention of the Autotype, Woodburytype, Collotype, and other methods of photo-mechanical printing.

1839. Daguerre's success communicated to the Academy of Science, Paris, by M. Arago, January 7th.

-- Electrotype process announced.

-- Professor Faraday described Fox Talbot's new method of photogenic drawing to the members of the Royal Institution, January 25th.

-- Fox Talbot read a paper, giving a full description of his process, before the Royal Society, January 31st.

-- Sir John Herschel introduced hyposulphite of soda as a fixing agent, February 14th.

-- Dr. Alfred Swaine Taylor employed ammonia nitrate of silver in preference to chloride of silver for making photogenic drawings, and employed hyposulphite of lime in preference to hyposulphite of soda for fixing.

-- Daguerre's process published in August, and patent, for England, granted to Mr. Beard, London, August 14th.

-- "History and Practice of Photogenic Drawing"; L. S. M. Daguerre. Published September.

-- First photographic portrait taken on a Daguerreotype plate by Professor. J. W. Draper, New York, U.S., in the autumn of this year.

1840. "On the Art of Photogenic Drawing," by Alfred S. Taylor, lecturer on chemistry, &c., at Guy's Hospital. Published by Jeffrey, George Yard, Lombard Street, London.

-- "The Handbook of Heliography, or the Art of Writing or Drawing by the Effect of Sunlight, with the Art of Dioramic Painting, as practised by M. Daguerre." Anon.

-- Wolcott's reflecting camera brought from America to England and secured by Mr. Beard, patentee of the Daguerreotype process.

-- The moon photographed for the first time by Dr. J. W. Draper, of New York, on a Daguerreotype plate.

-- John Frederick Goddard, of London, inventor of the polariscope and lecturer on chemistry, employed chlorine added to iodine, and afterwards bromine, as accelerators in the Daguerreotype process.

1840. Antoine F. J. Claudet, F.R.S., of London, employed chlorine for the same purpose.

-- M. Fizeau, of Paris, deposited a film of gold over the Daguerreotype picture after the removal of the iodine, which imparted increased brilliancy and permanency.

-- Chloride of platinum employed by Herschel.

-- Fox Talbot's developer published September 20th.

1841. Calotype process patented by Fox Talbot, September 20th.

-- First photographic compound portrait lens made by Andrew Ross, London.

-- Towson, of Liverpool, noted that chemical and visual foci did not coincide. Defect corrected by J. Petzval, of Vienna, for Voightlander.

-- "A Popular Treatise on the Art of Photography, including Daguerreotype and all the New Methods of Producing Pictures by the Chemical Agency of Light," by Robert Hunt, published by R. Griffin, Glasgow.

-- Daguerre announced an instantaneous process, but it was not successful.

1842. Sir John Herschel exhibited blue, red, and purple photographs at the Royal Institution.

-- "Photography Familiarly Explained," by W. R. Baxter, London.

1843. "Photogenic Manipulation," by G. T. Fisher Knight, Foster Lane.

-- Treatise on Photography by N. P. Lerebours, translated by J. Egerton.

1844. Fox Talbot issued "The Pencil of Nature," a book of silver prints from calotype negatives.

-- C. Cundell, of London, employed and published the use of bromide of potassium in the calotype process.

1844. "Researches on Light and its Chemical Relations," by Robert Hunt. First edition; second ditto, 1854.

-- Robert Hunt recommended proto-sulphate of iron as a developer for Talbot's calotype negatives; also oxalate of iron and acetate of lead for other purposes.

-- A. F. J. Claudet patented a red light for "dark room," but at that date a red light was not necessary, so the old photographers continued the use of yellow lights.

1845. "Photogenic Manipulations:" Part 1, Calotype, &c.; Part 2, Daguerreotype. By George Thomas Fisher, jun. Published by George Knight and Sons, London.

-- "Manual of Photography," including Daguerreotype, Calotype, &c., by Jabez Hogg. First edition. Second ditto, including Archer's collodion process, bichloride of mercury bleaching and intensifying, and gutta-percha transfer process, 1856.

1845. "Practical Hints on the Daguerreotype; Willats's Scientific Manuals."