1072
breaking; however, by the early nineteenth century,
the Society was beginning to reform itself. Under the
forty-two year presidency of Sir Joseph Banks it had
epitomised the gentlemen’s club leisurely investigating
a wide range of curiosities; after his death in 1822, it
began to transform itself into a rigorous and disciplined
body pursuing the increasingly professionalized sci-
ences, across social boundaries. The twice-annually
published Philosophical Transactions followed this
self-reforming trend, and as the main publication of
what was effectively the nation’s independent academy
of science, was treated with considerable respect.
Only a handful of important scientifi c papers relating
to the emergence of photography were published in the
Philosophical Transactions, all within the fi rst decade
of photography’s genesis. This apparent paucity can
be explained by the comparative rapidity with which
other commercially-produced periodicals, such as the
Philosophical Magazine, could produce a publication.
Also, the emergence of journals dedicated exclusively
to photography in the early 1850s meant that the writ-
ers, assured of an interested audience, in due course
went elsewhere. But amongst the important papers
which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions, the
pre-eminent scientifi c journal of the English-speaking
world, were several by Sir John Herschel (FRS from
1813), one of which was awarded the Royal Society’s
Royal Medal; this was published in 1840 and in it he
divided photography into positive and negative im-
ages for the fi rst time, mentioned his experiments with
photography on glass, the use of hyposulphite for fi x-
ing, and the necessity for achromatic lenses for correct
delineation. An earlier paper, read before the Society in
March 1839, was mislaid until recently. Other signifi cant
photographic papers were published in the Philosophi-
cal Transactions by Robert Hunt and Antoine Claudet;
two papers about the application of photography to
recording instruments were placed there by Sir Charles
Brooke and Sir Francis Ronalds.
A.D. Morrison-Low
See also: Claudet, Antoine-François-Jean; Herschel,
Sir John Frederick William; Hunt, Robert; Talbot,
William Henry Fox; Royal Society, London; and
Philosophical Magazine.
References and Further Reading
Gernsheim, Helmut, Incunabula of British Photographic Litera-
ture 1839–1875, London and Berkeley: Scolar Press, 1984.
Hall, Marie Boas, All Scientists Now: the Royal Society in the
Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1984.
Johns, Adrian, “Miscellaneous Methods: Authors, Societies and
Journals in Early Modern England,” British Journal for the
History of Science, 33, part 2 (2000), 159–186.
Schaaf, Larry J., “Sir John Herschel’s 1839 Royal Society Paper
on Photography,” History of Photography, 3, part 1 (1979),
.47–60.
Schaaf, Larry J., “Herschel, Talbot and Photography: Spring
1831 and Spring 1839,” History of Photography, 4, part 3
(1980), 181–204.PHILPOT, JOHN BRAMPTON
(1812–1878)
English photographer
Born in England, John Brampton Philpot resided in Flor-
ence from about 1850 until his death in 1878. In 1856
Philpot made thirty calotypes which record the sculpted
fi gures of the Tuscan “pantheon” in the exterior niches
of the Uffi zi. A series of 28 calotypes of Florence date
from the same period, for four of these were exhibited
in 1856 at the Photographic Society of Scotland in Ed-
inburgh. Also in the 1850s Philpot produced facsimiles
of drawings in the Uffi zi in connection with a proposal
to compile an inventory of the collection. Baedeker
mentioned this aspect of Philpot’s production in his 1877
Handbook for Northern Italy, listing Philpot’s business
as one of the principal photographic establishments in
Florence: “Philpot & Co., Borgo Ognissanti 17 (repro-
ductions of Uffi zi drawings).”
Graham SmithPHOTO-CLUB DE PARIS
In the 1880s, photographic technique and practice
evolved, it became easier to take pictures, thanks to
the introduction of the Gelatino-bromide process. This
invention permitted an industrialization of photography.
Lots of people bought a camera and photographed—for
most of all—their family life and their entertainments.
Likewise, the institution had to follow this funda-
mental change. Scientifi c members of photographic
societies and long time users tried to make recognize
photography not only as a leisure but as a new subject
of research.
Following the techniques simplifi cation, a new type
of amateurs emerged. Born for almost all of them dur-
ing the 1850s, they were not particularly involved in
chemistry. Along with it, a new kind of gathering, the
Photo-Club de Paris created in 1888 after an article in
the newspaper “L’Amateur photographe,” was entirely
dedicated to the amateurs, and not only to the scientifi c
community, which was the main audience of the Société
française de photographie. The Photo-Club had a real
program : it was struggling to make photography recog-
nized as an art and to give a real status to the creators. It
corresponded to a new expectation that the established
institutions could not satisfy.
However, one of its most important initiators, Mau-
rice Bucquet, searched for acknowledgement of the