solution. The proportions set down were only taken at random, and are
certainly not as sensitive as might be procured under trials. The
remaining emulsion was left shut up in a box in the dark room, and tried
on the third day after preparation; but the sensibility had, it seems,
greatly diminished, though the emulsion, when rendered fluid by gently
warming, appeared creamy, and the bromide thoroughly suspended. Some of
this was now applied to some pieces of paper by means of a glass rod,
and hung up to surface dry, then dried fully on the warmed level plate,
and treated as sensitised paper.
"One kind of paper, that evidently was largely adulterated by some earthy
base, dried without any brilliancy, but gave, under exposure of a
negative for thirty seconds, very nicely toned prints when developed
with a weak solution of pyro. Some old albumenized paper of Marion's was
tried, the emulsion being poured both on the albumen side, and, in other
pieces, on the plain side; but the salting evidently greatly interfered,
the resulting prints being dirty-looking and greyed all over.
"These papers, fumed with ammonia, turned grey under development. They
printed very slowly, even in strong sunlight, and were none of them left
long enough to develop into a full print. After washing they were
cleared by weak hypo solution. It is very possible the iron developer
may be employed for the glass prints, provided the acidification does
not render the gelatine soft under a development.
"The slowness may depend in part on the proportions of bromide and
nitrate not being correctly balanced, especially as the ordinary, not
the anhydrous, bromide was used, and on the quantities being too small
for the proportion of gelatine. Whether the plates would be more
sensitive if used when only surface dry is a question of experiment;
also, whether other bromides than the one tried may not prove more
advantageous in the presence of the neutral salt resulting from the
decomposition, or the omission or decrease of the quantity of _aqua
regia_. Very probably also the development by gallic acid and acetate of
lead developer may furnish better results than the plain pyro.
"As there will be no chance of my being able to continue these
experiments, they are placed in their crude state before the readers of
the Journal, and may eventually receive correction and improvement under
abler hands. So far as can be judged, the process seems quite worth more
carefully conducted experiments, and, if found advantageous, adds
another handle to the photographer's wheel.
R. L. Maddox, M.D."
After perusing the above, it will be evident to any one that Dr. Maddox
very nearly arrived at perfection in his early experiments. The slowness
that he complains of was caused entirely by not washing the emulsion to
discharge the excess of bromide, and the want of density was due to the
absence of a restrainer and ammonia in the developer. He only made
positive prints from negatives; but the same emulsion, had it been
washed, would have made negatives in the camera in much less time. Thus,
it will be seen, that Dr. Maddox, like the Rev. J. B. Reade, threw the
ball, and others caught it; for the gelatine process, as given by Dr.
Maddox, is only modified, not altered, by the numerous dry plate and
gelatino-bromide paper manufacturers of to-day.
Meanwhile collodion held the field, and many practical men thought it
would never be superseded.
In this year Sir John Herschel died at a ripe old age, seventy-nine.
Photographers should revere his memory, for it was he who made
photography practical by publishing his observation that hyposulphite of
soda possessed the power of dissolving chloride and other salts of
silver.
[Illustration: FOURTH PERIOD.
GELATINE.
Dr. R. L. MADDOX.
_From Photograph by J. Thomson._
GELATINO-BROMIDE EMULSION 1871.
R. KENNETT.
_From Photograph by J. Werge, 1887._
GELATINO-BROMIDE PELLICLE 1873 DRY-PLATES 1874]
FOURTH PERIOD.
GELATINE SUCCESSFUL.
In 1873, Mr. J. Burgess, of Peckham, London, advertised his
gelatino-bromide emulsion, but as it would not keep in consequence of
decomposition setting in speedily, it was not commercial, and therefore
unsuccessful. It evidently required the addition of some preservative,
or antiseptic, to keep it in a workable condition, and Mr. J. Traill
Taylor, editor of the _British Journal of Photography_, made some
experiments in that direction by adding various essential oils; but Mr.
Gray--afterwards the well-known dry plate maker--was most successful in
preserving the gelatine emulsion from decomposition by the addition of a
little oil of peppermint, but it was not the emulsion form of
gelatino-bromide of silver that was destined to secure its universal
adoption and success.
At a meeting of the South London Photographic Society, held in the large
room of the Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi, Mr. Burgess
endeavoured to account for his emulsion decomposing, but he did not
suggest a remedy, so the process ceased to attract further attention.
Mr. Kennett was present, and it was probably Mr. Burgess's failure with
emulsion that induced him to make his experiments with a sensitive
pellicle. Be that as it may, Mr. Kennett did succeed in making a
workable gelatino-bromide pellicle, and obtained a patent for it on the
20th of November, 1873. I procured some, and tried it at once. It gave
excellent results, but preparing the plates was a messy and sticky
operation, which I feared would be prejudicial to its usefulness and
success. This I reported to Mr. Kennett immediately, and found that
his own experience corroborated mine, for he had already received
numerous complaints of this objection, while others failed through
misapprehension of his instruction; and very comical were some of these
misinterpretations. One attempted to coat the plates with the _end_ of
the stirring-rod, while another set them to drain in a rack, and those
that did succeed in coating the plates properly, invariably spoiled
them by over-exposure or in development. He was overwhelmed with
correspondence and visitors, and to lessen his troubles I strongly
advised him to prepare the plates himself, and sell them in that form
ready for use. He took my advice, and in March, 1874, issued his first
batch of gelatino-bromide dry plates; but even that did not remove his
vexation of spirit, nor lessen his troublesome correspondence. Most of
his clients were sceptical, and exposed the plates too long, or worked
under wet-plate conditions in their dark rooms, and fog and failure were
the natural consequences. Most, if not all, of his clients at that time
were amateurs, and it was not until years after, that professional
photographers adopted the dry and abandoned the wet process. In fact, it
is doubtful if the profession ever tried Mr. Kennett's dry plates at
all, for it was not until J. W. Swan and Wratten and Wainwright issued
their dry plates, that I could induce any professional photographer to
give these new plates a trial, and I have a very vivid recollection
of the scepticism and conservatism exhibited by the most eminent
photographers on the first introduction of gelatino-bromide dry plates.
For example, when I called upon Messrs. Elliott and Fry to introduce to
their notice these rapid plates, I saw Mr. Fry, and told him how rapid
they were. He was incredulous, and smilingly informed me that I was an
enthusiast. It was a dull November morning, 1878, and I challenged him,
not to fight, but to give me an opportunity of producing as good a
picture in quarter the time they were giving in the studio, no matter
what that time was. This rather astonished him, and he invited me up to
the studio to prove my statement. I ascertained that they were giving
_ninety_ seconds--a minute and a half!--on a wet collodion plate, 10 by
8. I knew their size, and had it with me, as well as the developer. Mr.
Fry stood and told the operator, Mr. Benares, to take the time from me.
Looking at the quality of the light, I gave _twenty_ seconds, but Mr.
Benares was disposed to be incredulous also, and, after counting twenty,
went on with "one for the plate, and one more for Mr. Werge," but I told
him to stop, or I would have nothing more to do with the business. The
plate had twenty-two or three seconds' exposure, and when I developed in
their dark room, it was just those two or three seconds over-exposed.
Nevertheless, Mr. Fry brought me a print from that negative in a few
days, and acknowledged that it was one of the finest negatives he had
ever seen. They were convinced, and adopted the new dry plates
immediately. But it was not so with all, for many of the most prominent
photographers would not at first have anything to do with gelatine
plates, and remained quite satisfied with collodion; but the time came
when they were glad to change their opinion, and give up the wet for
the dry plates; but it was a long time, for Mr. Kennett introduced his
dry plates in 1874, and it was not until 1879 and 1880 that professional
photographers had adopted and taken kindly to gelatine plates generally.
With amateurs it was very different, and many of their exhibits in the
various exhibitions were from gelatine negatives obtained upon plates
prepared by themselves, or commercial makers. In the London Photographic
Society's exhibition of 1874, and following, several prints from
gelatine negatives were exhibited, and in 1879 they were pretty general.
Among the many exhibited that year was Mr. Gale's swallow-picture,
which created at the time a great deal of interest and controversy, and
Mr. Gale was invited over and over again to acknowledge whether the
appearance of the bird was the result of skill, accident, or "trickery;"
but I don't think that he ever gratified anyone's curiosity on the
subject. I can, however, state very confidently that he was innocent of
any "trickery" in introducing the bird by double printing, for the late
Mr. Dudley Radcliffe told me at the time that he (Mr. Radcliffe) not
only prepared the plate, but developed the negative, and was surprised
to see the bird there. This may have been the reason why Mr. Gale was so
reticent on the subject; but I am anticipating, and must go back to
preserve my plan of chronological progression.
In 1875 a considerable impetus was given to carbon printing, both for
small work and enlarging by the introduction of the Lambertype process.
Similar work had been done before, but, as Mr. Leon Lambert used to say,
he made it "facile"; and he certainly did so, and induced many
photographers to adopt his beautiful, but troublesome, chromotype
process. There were two Lamberts in the tent--one a very clever
manipulator, the other a clever advertiser--and between the two they
managed to sell a great many licences, and carry away a considerable sum
of money. I was intimate with them both while they remained in England,
and they were both pleasant and honourable men.
On January 18th, 1875, O. G. Rejlander died, much to the regret of all
who took an interest in the art phase of photography. Rejlander has
himself told us how, when, and where he first fell in love with
photography. In 1851 he was not impressed with the Daguerreotypes at the
great exhibition, nor with "reddish landscape photographs" that he saw
in Regent Street; but when in Rome, in 1852, he was struck with the
beauty of some photographs of statuary, which he bought and studied,
and made up his mind to study photography as soon as he returned to
England. How he did that will be best told by himself:--"In 1853, having
inquired in London for the best teacher, I was directed to Henneman. We
agreed for so much for three or five lessons; but, as I was in a hurry
to get back to the country, I took all the lessons in one afternoon!
Three hours in the calotype and waxed-paper process, and half-an-hour
sufficed for the collodion process!! He spoke, I wrote; but I was too
clever. It would have saved me a year or more of trouble and expense had
I attended carefully to the rudiments of the art for a month." His first
attempt at "double printing" was exhibited in London in 1855, and was
named in the catalogue, _group printed from three negatives_. Again, I
must allow Mr. Rejlander to describe his reasons for persevering in the
art of "double printing":--"I had taken a group of two. They were
expressive and composed well. The light was good, and the chemistry of
it successful. A very good artist was staying in the neighbourhood,
engaged on some commission. He called; saw the picture; was very much
delighted with it, and so was I. Before he left my house he looked at
the picture again, and said it was 'marvellous,' but added, 'Now, if I
had drawn that, I should have introduced another figure between them, or
some light object, to keep them together. You see, there is where you
photographers are at fault. Good morning!' I snapped my fingers after he
left--but not at him--and exclaimed aloud, 'I can do it!' Two days
afterwards I called at my artist-friend's hotel as proud as--anybody. He
looked at my picture and at me, and took snuff twice. He said, 'This is
another picture.' 'No,' said I, 'it is the same, except with the
addition you suggested.' 'Never,' he exclaimed; 'and how is it possible?
You should patent that!'" Rejlander was too much of an artist to take
anything to the Patent Office.
When I first saw his celebrated composition picture, "The Two Ways of
Life," in the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester in 1857, I
wondered how he could have got so many men and women to become models,
and be able to sit or stand in such varied and strained positions for
the length of time then required by the wet collodion process; but my
wonder ceased when I became acquainted with him in after years, and
ascertained that he had the command of a celebrated troupe, who gave
_tableaux vivants_ representations of statues and groups from paintings
under the direction and name of "Madame Wharton's _pose plastique_
troupe." What became of the original "Two Ways of Life" I do not know,
but the late Henry Greenwood possessed it at the time of Rejlander's
death, for I remember endeavouring to induce Mr. Greenwood to allow it
to be offered as a bait to the highest contributor to the Rejlander
fund; but Mr. Greenwood's characteristic reply was, "Take my purse, but
leave me my 'Two Ways of Life.'" Mr. Rejlander kindly gave me a reduced
copy of his "Two Ways of Life," and many other examples of his works,
both in the nude and semi-nude. Fortunately Rejlander did not confine
himself to such productions, but made hundreds of draped studies, both
comic and serious, such as "Ginx's Baby," "Did She?," "Beyond the Bible,"
and "Homeless." Where are they all now? I fear most of them have faded
away, for Rejlander was a somewhat careless operator, and he died before
the more permanent process of platinum printing was introduced. When
Rejlander died, his widow tried to make a living by printing from his
negatives, but I fear they soon got scattered. Rejlander was a genial
soul and a pleasant companion, and he had many kind friends among
members of the Solar Club, as well as other clubs with which he was
associated.
There is one more death in this year to be recorded, that of Thomas
Sutton, B.A., the founder and for many years editor of _Photographic
Notes_, and the inventor of a panoramic camera of a very clumsy
character that bore his name, and that was all. Mr. Sutton was a very
clever man with rather warped notions, and in the management of his
_Photographic Notes_ he descended to the undignified position of a
caricaturist, and published illustrations of an uncomplimentary
description, some of which were offensive in the extreme, and created a
great deal of irritation in some minds at the time.
In 1877 Carey Lea gave his ferrous-oxalate developer to the world, but
it was not welcomed by many English photographers for negative
development, though it possessed many advantages over alkaline pyro. It
was, however, generally employed by foreign photographers, and is now
largely in use by English photographers, especially for the development
of bromide paper, either for contact printing or enlargements. In the
early part of this year, Messrs. Wratten and Wainwright commenced to
make gelatino-bromide dry plates, and during the hot summer months Mr.
Wratten found it necessary to precipitate the gelatine emulsion with
alcohol. This removed the necessity of dialysing, and helped to lessen
the evils of decomposition and "frilling."
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.