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
The examples had been sent to the
Photographic Society with the hope of selling them for the benefit of
the widow, but the Society was too wise to invest in such evanescent
property. However, a subscription was raised both in England and France
for the benefit of the widow and orphans of Niépce de St. Victor.
December, 1870, was marked by the death of one of the eminent pioneers
of photography. On the 12th, the Rev. J. B. Reade passed away at
Bishopsbourne Rectory, Canterbury, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. I
have already, I think, established Mr. Reade's claim to the honour of
being the first to produce a photographic negative on paper developed
with gallic acid, and I regret that I am unable to trace the existence
of those two negatives alluded to in Mr. Reade's published letter. Mr.
Reade told me himself that he gave those two historic negatives to Dr.
Diamond, when Secretary to the Photographic Society, to be lodged with
that body for safety, proof, and reference; but they are not now in the
possession of the Photographic Society, and what became of them no one
knows. Several years ago I caused enquiries to be made, and Dr. Diamond
was written to by Mr. H. Baden Pritchard, then Secretary, but Dr.
Diamond's reply was to the effect that he had no recollection of them,
and that Mr. Reade was given to hallucinations. Considering the
positions that Mr. Reade held, both in the world and various learned and
scientific societies, I don't think that he could ever have been
afflicted with such a mental weakness. He was a clergyman in the Church
of England, an amateur astronomer and microscopist, one of the fathers
of photography, and a member of Council of the Photographic Society, and
President of the Microscopical Society at the time of his death. I had
many a conversation with him years ago, and I never detected either
weakness or wandering in his mind; therefore I could not doubt the truth
of his statement relative to the custodianship of the first paper
negative that was taken through the lens of a solar microscope. Mr.
Reade was a kind and affable man; and, though a great sufferer on his
last bed of sickness, he wrote loving, grateful, and Christian like
letters to many of his friends, some of which I have seen, and I have
photographed his signature to one of them to attach to his portrait,
which I happily possess.
In 1871 the coming revolution in photography was faintly heralded by Dr.
R. L. Maddox, publishing in the _British Journal of Photography_, "An
Experiment with Gelatino-Bromide." Successful as the experiment was it
did not lead to any extensive adoption of the process at the time, but
it did most unquestionably exhibit the capabilities of gelatino-bromide.
As that communication to the _British Journal of Photography_ contained
and first made public the working details of a process that was destined
to supersede collodion, I will here insert a copy of Dr. Maddox's letter
_in extenso_.
"An Experiment with Gelatino-Bromide.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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