The chief contributors to the exhibition of photographs were Messrs. Mayall, T. R. Williams, and Herbert Watkins in portraiture; and in landscapes, &c., Messrs. Francis Bedford, Rejlander, Rouch, Stephen Thompson, James Mudd, William Mayland, H. P. Robinson, and Breeze. By some carelessness or stupidity on the part of the attendants or constructors of the Exhibition, nearly all Mr. Breeze’s beautiful exhibits—stereoscopes and stereoscopic transparencies—were destroyed by the fall of a skylight. Perhaps the best thing that the International Exhibition did for photography was the issue of the Jurors’ Report, as it was prefaced with a brief History of Photography up to date, not perfectly correct regarding the Rev. J. B. Reade’s labours, but otherwise good, the authorship of which I attribute to the late Dr. Diamond; but the awards—ah! well, awards never were quite satisfactory. Commendees thought they should have been medalists, and the latter thought something else. Thomas Ross, J. H. Dallmeyer, and Negretti and Zambra were the English recipients of medals, and Voightlander and Son and C. Dietzler received medals for their lenses.
Early in 1862 the Harrison Globe Lens was attracting attention, and, as much was claimed for it both in width of angle and rapidity, I imported from New York a 5 by 4 and a whole-plate as samples. The 5 by 4 was an excellent lens, and embraced a much wider angle than any other lens known, and Mr. Hughes employed it to photograph the bridal bed and suite of apartments of the Prince and Princess of Wales at Osborne, Isle of Wight, and I feel certain that no other lens would have done the work so well. I have copies of the photograph by me now. They are circular pictures of five inches in diameter, and every article and decoration visible in the chambers are as sharp and crisp as possible. I showed the lens to Mr. Dallmeyer, and he thought he could make a better one; his Wide-Angle Rectilinear was the result.
Mr. John Pouncy, of Dorchester, introduced his “patent process for permanent printing” this year, but it never made much headway. It was an oleagenous process, mixed with bichromate of potash, or bitumen of Judea, and always smelt of bad fat. I possessed examples at the time, but took no care of them, and no one else did in all probability; but it appeared to me to be the best means of transferring photographic impressions to wood blocks for the engraver’s purpose. Thomas Sutton, B.A., published a book on Pouncy’s process and carbon printing, but the process had inherent defects which were not overcome, so nothing could make it a success. Sutton’s “History of Carbon Printing” was sufficiently interesting to attract both readers and buyers at the time.
I have previously stated that Daguerre introduced and left his process in an imperfect and uncommercial condition, and that it was John Frederick Goddard, then lecturer at the Adelaide Gallery, London, and inventor of the polariscope, who discovered the accelerating properties of bromine, and by which, with iodine, he obtained a bromo-iodide of silver on the surface of the silvered plate employed in the Daguerreotype process, thereby reducing the time of exposure from twenty minutes to twenty seconds, and making the process available for portraiture with an ordinary double combination lens. Somehow or other, this worthy gentleman had fallen into adverse circumstances, and was obliged to eat the bread of charity in his old age. The facts of this sad case coming to the knowledge of Mr. Hughes and others, an appeal, written by Mr. Hughes, was published in the Photographic News, December 11th, 1863. As Mr. Hughes and myself had benefitted by Mr. Goddard’s improvement in the practice of the Daguerreotype, we took an active interest in the matter, and, by canvassing friends and customers, succeeded in obtaining a considerable proportion of the sum total subscribed for the relief of Mr. Goddard. Enough was obtained to make him independent and comfortable for the remainder of his life. Mr. T. R. Williams was appointed almoner by the committee, but his office was not for long, as Mr. Goddard died Dec. 28th, 1866.
On the 5th of April, 1864, I attended a meeting of the Photographic Society at King’s College, and heard Mr. J. W. Swan read a paper on his new patent carbon process. It was a crowded meeting, and an intense interest pervaded the minds of both members and visitors. The examples exhibited were very beautiful, but at that early stage they began to show a weakness, which clung to the collodion support as long as it was employed. Some of the specimens which I obtained at the time left the mounting boards, and the films were torn asunder by opposing forces, and the pictures completely destroyed. I have one in my possession now in that unsatisfactory condition. Mr. Swan’s process was undoubtedly an advance in the right direction, but it was still imperfect, and required further improvement. Many of the members failed to see where the patent rights came in, and Mr. Swan himself appeared to have qualms of conscience on the subject, for he rather apologetically announced in his paper, that he had obtained a patent, though his first intention was to allow it to be practised without any restriction. I think myself it would have been wiser to have adhered to his original intention; however, it was left to others to do more to advance the carbon process than he did.
During this year (1865) an effort was made to establish a claim of priority in favour of Thomas Wedgwood for the honour of having made photographs on silver plates, and negatives on paper, and examples of such alleged early works were submitted to the inspection of members of the Photographic Society, but it was most satisfactorily determined that the photographs on the silver plates were weak Daguerreotypes of a posterior date, and that the photographic prints, on paper, of a breakfast table were from a calotype negative taken by Fox Talbot. Messrs. Henneman and Dr. Diamond proved this most conclusively. Other prints then exhibited, and alleged to be photographs, were nothing but prints from metal plates, produced by some process of engraving, probably Aquatint. I saw some of the examples at the time, and, as recently as Nov. 1st, 1889, I have seen some of them again, and I think the “Breakfast Table” and a view of “Wedgwood’s Pottery” are silver prints, though very much faded, from calotype negatives. The other prints, such as the “Piper” and “A Vase,” are from engraved plates. No one can desire to lessen Thomas Wedgwood’s claims to pre-eminence among the early experimentalists with chloride of silver, but there cannot now be any denial to the claims of the Rev. J. B. Reade in 1837, and Fox Talbot in 1840, of being the earliest producers of photographic negatives on paper, from which numerous prints could be obtained.
The Wothlytype printing process was introduced to the notice of photographers and the public this year: first, by a blatant article in the Times, which was both inaccurate and misleading, for it stated that both nitrate of silver and hyposulphite of soda were dispensed within the process; secondly, by the issue of advertisements and prospectuses for the formation of a Limited Liability Company. I went to the Patent Office and examined the specification, and found that both nitrate of silver and hyposulphite of soda were essential to the practice of the process, and that there was no greater guarantee of permanency in the use of the Wothlytype than in ordinary silver printing.
On March 14th, 1865, George Wharton Simpson, editor and proprietor of the Photographic News, read a paper at a meeting of the Photographic Society on a new printing process with collodio-chloride of silver on paper. Many beautiful examples were exhibited, but the method never became popular, chiefly on account of the troubles of toning with sulpho-cyanide of ammonium. The same or a similar process, substituting gelatine for collodion, is known and practised now under the name of Aristotype, but not very extensively, because of the same defects and difficulties attending the Simpsontype. Another new method of positive printing was introduced this year by Mr. John M. Burgess, of Norwich, which he called “Eburneum.” It was not in reality a new mode of printing, but an ingenious application of the collodion transfer, or stripping process. The back of the collodion positive print was coated with a mixture of gelatine and oxide of zinc, and when dry stripped from the glass. The finished picture resembled a print on very fine ivory, and possessed both delicate half-tones and brilliant shadows. I possess some of them now, and they are as beautiful as they were at first, after a lapse of nearly quarter of a century. It was a very troublesome and tedious process, and I don’t think many people practised it. Certainly I don’t know any one that does so at the present time.
This was the year of the Dublin International Exhibition. I went to see it and report thereon, and my opinions and criticisms of the photographic and other departments will be found and may be perused in “Contributions to Photographic Literature.” On the whole, it was a very excellent exhibition, and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.
A new carbon process by M. Carey Lea was published this year. The ingredients were similar to those employed by Swan and others, but differently handled. No pigment was mixed with the gelatine before exposure, but it was rubbed on after exposure and washing, and with care any colour or number of colours might be applied, and so produce a polychromatic picture, but I don’t know any one that ever did so. I think it could easily be applied to making photographic transfers to blocks for the use of wood engravers.