Henry Fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot
William Henry Fox Talbot, by John Moffat, 1864.
Born	(1800-02-11)11 February 1800 Melbury, Dorset, England
Died	17 September 1877(1877-09-17) (aged 77) Lacock, Wiltshire, England
Occupation	Inventor
Known for	Inventing of the calotype process
Spouse(s)	Constance Talbot
Children	Ela (1836–1893) Rosamond (1837–1906)
Parents	William Davenport Talbot Elisabeth Fox Strangways

William Henry Fox Talbot (11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877) was a British inventor and photography pioneer who invented the calotype process, a precursor to photographic processes of the 19th and 20th centuries. Talbot was also a noted photographer who made major contributions to the development of photography as an artistic medium. His work in the 1840s on photo-mechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. Talbot is also remembered as the holder of a patent which, some say, affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. Additionally, he made some important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, Reading, and York.^[2]

Early life

Talbot was the only child of William Davenport Talbot, of Lacock Abbey, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, and of Lady Elisabeth Fox Strangways, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Ilchester. Talbot was educated at Rottingdean, Harrow School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded the Porson prize in Classics in 1820, and graduated as twelfth wrangler in 1821.^[3] From 1822 to 1872, he communicated papers to the Royal Society, many of them on mathematical subjects. At an early period, he began optical researches, which later bore fruit in connection with photography. To the Edinburgh Journal of Science in 1826 he contributed a paper on "Some Experiments on Coloured Flame"; to the Quarterly Journal of Science in 1827 a paper on "Monochromatic Light"; and to the Philosophical Magazine papers on chemical subjects, including one on "Chemical Changes of Colour."

Invention of calotype process

Latticed window at Lacock Abbey, August 1835. A positive from what may be the oldest camera negative in existence.^[1]

Talbot claimed experiments beginning in early 1834, when Louis Daguerre in 1839 exhibited his pictures taken by the sun. After Daguerre's discovery was announced, without details, Talbot showed his three-and-a-half-year-old pictures at the Royal Institution on 25 January 1839. Within a fortnight, he communicated the technical details of his photogenic drawing process to the Royal Society; Daguerre revealed details of his process in August.

In 1841, Talbot announced his discovery of the calotype, or talbotype, process. This process reflected the work of many predecessors, most notably John Herschel and Thomas Wedgwood. In August 1841, Talbot licensed Henry Collen, the miniature painter as the first professional calotypist. Talbot's original contributions included the concept of a negative from which many positive prints can be made (although the terms negative and positive were coined by Herschel), and the use of gallic acid for developing the latent image. In 1842, for his photographic discoveries detailed in his The Pencil of Nature (1844), he received the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society.^[4]

Patenting controversy

Miss Horatia Feilding, half sister of Talbot playing the harp, c. 1842

London Street, Reading, c. 1845

The work on the Daguerre process was taking place at the same time as that of Talbot's work in England on the calotype process. Daguerre's agent in England applied for a British patent a matter of days before France, having granted Daguerre a pension, declared his invention "free to the world". Great Britain therefore became the only country where the payment of license fees was required to use the Daguerre process.

In February 1841, Talbot obtained a patent for the calotype process. At first, he was selling individual patent licences for £20 each, but later he lowered the fee to £4 and waived the payment for those who wished to use the process only as amateurs. Professional photographers, however, had to pay up to £300 annually. In a business climate where many patent holders were attacked for enforcing their rights, Talbot's behaviour was widely criticised, especially after 1851 when Frederick Scott Archer publicised the collodion process. Talbot declared that anyone using Archer's process would still be liable to get a license for calotype.

One reason Talbot patented the calotype was that he had spent many thousands of pounds on the development of the calotype process over several years. It is also significant that, although the daguerreotype process was supposed to be free to the world, Daguerre secured a British patent on his own process. Talbot's negative/positive process eventually succeeded as the basis for almost all 19th and 20th century photography. The daguerreotype was rarely used by photographers after 1860 and had died as a commercial process by 1865.

One person who tried to use the daguerreotype as a method of reproduction without Talbot's process was Levett Landon Boscawen Ibbetson.^[5] But as good as Ibbetson's attempts were at producing something like a lithograph from the original daguerrotype, the end result could not compete with Talbot's process. They were simply too expensive. Ibbetson began experimenting with Talbot's calotype, and in 1842 wrote to Talbot "I have been going on with experiments in the Callotype & have had some very good results as to depth of Colour."^[6] By 1852, Capt. Ibbetson was showing his book using the Talbot calotype process, called "Le Premier Livre Imprimè par le Soleil" at a London Society of Arts exhibition.^[7][8]

The calotype or talbotype (he used these names interchangeably)^[9] was Talbot's improvement of his earlier photogenic drawing process by the use of a different silver salt (silver iodide instead of silver chloride) and a developing agent (gallic acid and silver nitrate) to bring out a latent image on the exposed paper. This reduced the minimum exposure time in the camera from over an hour to only a minute or two. The translucent calotype negative made it possible to produce as many positive prints as desired by simple contact printing; the daguerreotype was an opaque direct positive that could only be reproduced by copying it with a camera. On the other hand, the calotype, despite waxing of the negative to make the image clearer, still was not pin sharp like the metallic daguerreotype, as the paper fibres degraded the image produced.

1853 photo by Talbot

The problem was resolved in 1851 (the year of Daguerre's death) when the wet collodion process enabled glass to be used as a support; the lack of detail often found in calotype negatives was removed, and sharp images, similar in detail to the daguerreotype, were created. The wet collodion negative not only brought about the end of the calotype in commercial use, but also spelled the end of the daguerreotype as a common process for portraiture.

In August 1852, The Times published an open letter by Lord Rosse, the President of the Royal Society, and Charles Lock Eastlake, the president of the Royal Academy, who called on Talbot to relieve his patent pressure that was perceived as stifling the development of photography. In his response, Talbot agreed to waive licensing fees for amateurs, but he continued to pursue professional portrait photographers, having filed several lawsuits.

In 1854, Talbot applied for an extension of the 14-year patent. At that time one of his lawsuits, against a photographer Martin Laroche, was heard by the court. The Talbot v. Laroche case was the pivotal point of the story. Laroche's side argued that the patent was invalid, as a similar process was invented earlier by Joseph Reade, and that using the collodion process does not infringe the calotype patent anyway, because of significant differences between the two processes. In the verdict, the jury upheld the calotype patent but agreed that Laroche was not infringing upon it by using the collodion process. Disappointed by the outcome, Talbot chose not to extend his patent.

Other activities

Fox Talbot family grave in Lacock village churchyard

Talbot was active in politics, being a moderate Reformer who generally supported the Whig Ministers. He served as Member of Parliament for Chippenham between 1832 and 1835 when he retired from Parliament. He also held the office of High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1840.

Whilst engaged in his scientific researches, he devoted much time to archaeology. He published Hermes, or Classical and Antiquarian Researches (1838–39), and Illustrations of the Antiquity of the Book of Genesis (1839). With Sir Henry Rawlinson and Dr Edward Hincks he shares the honour of having been one of the first decipherers of the cuneiform inscriptions of Nineveh. He was also the author of English Etymologies (1846).

In 1843–44, he set up an establishment in Baker Street, Reading, for the purpose of mass-producing salted paper prints from his calotype negatives. The Reading Establishment (as it was known) also produced prints from other calotypist's negatives and even produced portraits and copy prints at the studio.

He died in Lacock village aged 77, and is buried there along with his wife and children.

Works

Loch Katrine (cir. 1845) Salt print from calotype negative | 8x9 in. Birmingham Museum of Art

See also

• Talbot effect: a diffraction effect discovered by Talbot.

Notes

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press 
• Who's Who of members of parliament: Volume I 1832–1885, edited by Michael Stenton (The Harvester Press 1976)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry Fox Talbot.

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by William Fox Talbot
• The Fox Talbot Museum
• The correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot
• `Talbot' vs. `Fox Talbot'
• The Calotype Patent Lawsuit of Talbot v. Laroche, 1854, by R. D. Wood
• Talbot and Photogenic Drawing
• Science & Society Picture Library
• Works by or about Henry Fox Talbot in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Talbot materials in the Digital Collections of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.
• 'William Henry Fox Talbot's Open Door: Picture of the day,' The Guardian, 10 December 2012
•  "Talbot, William Henry Fox". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.  Check date values in: |date= (help)
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Henry Fox Talbot", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews .