The Evolution of Photography: With a Chronological Record of Discoveries, Inventions, Etc., Contributions to Photographic Literature, and Personal Reminescences Extending over Forty YearsWerge, John, active 1854-1890
History
The Evolution of Photography: With a Chronological Record of Discoveries, Inventions, Etc., Contributions to Photographic Literature, and Personal Reminescences Extending over Forty Years
Werge, John, active 1854-1890
Photography -- History
These lengthy extracts from the Rev. Mr. Reade's published letter render
further comment all but superfluous, but I cannot resist taking
advantage of the opportunity here afforded of pointing out to all lovers
of photography and natural justice that the progress of the discovery
has advanced to a far greater extent by Mr. Reade's reasoning and
experiments than it was by Mr. Talbot's ingenuity. The latter, as Mr.
Reade observes, only "caught the ball" and threw it into the Patent
Office, with some improvements in the manipulations. Mr. Reade
generously ascribes all honour and glory to Mr. Talbot for his
shrewdness in seizing what he had overlooked, viz., the development of
the latent image; but there is a quiet current of rebuke running all
through Mr. Reade's letter about the justice of patenting a known
sensitiser and a known accelerator, which he alone had combined and
applied to the successful production of a negative on paper. Mr.
Talbot's patent process was nothing more, yet he endeavoured to secure
a monopoly of what was in substance the discovery and invention of
another. Mr. Talbot was either very precipitate, or ill-advised, to rush
to the Patent Office with his modification, and even at this distant
date it is much to be regretted that he did so, for his rash act has,
unhappily for photography, proved a pernicious precedent. Mr. Reade gave
his discoveries to the world freely, and the "pleasure of the discovery"
was "a sufficient reward." All honour to such discoverers. They, and
they only, are the true lovers of science and art, who take up the torch
where another laid it down, or lost it, and carry it forward another
stage towards perfection, without sullying its brightness or dimming the
flame with sordid motives.
The Rev. J. B. Reade lived to see the process _he_ discovered and
watched over in its embryo state, developed with wondrous rapidity into
one of the most extensively applied arts of this marvellous age, and
died, regretted and esteemed by all who knew him, December 12th, 1870.
Photographers, your occupations are his monument, but let his name be a
tablet on your hearts, and his unselfishness your emulation!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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