1168
person to recognise that photographers needed some
means of accurate exposure determination.
His interest in photography, however, seems to have
been relatively short-lived, and there is scant evidence
of further engagement with the medium after 1840.
Dr. Juan Maria Pou y Camps was born in Girona
in northern Spain and studied pharmacy in Barcelona,
becoming Professor of Pharmacy in Pamploma by the
age of 28. By 1849 he was listed as Professor of Phar-
macy at the University of Madrid. He died in Madrid
in 1852.
John Hannavy
POUNCY, JOHN (C. 1808–1894)
Active from the daguerreotype period John Pouncy
remained fi rmly a Dorset photographer based for his
whole life in the county town of Dorchester—yet his
reputation was international. His long career, his patents
in 1858 (No.780), 1863 (No.267) and 1868 (No. 3849)
for his carbon process and his venture into colour fi ne
art reproduction should all be seen in the context of his
obituary: he “displayed a strong will and fi rm determi-
nation, and when one he had convinced himself that
he was right it was diffi cult to move him” (Dorchester
Chronicle, 29 March 1894).This determination provides
the context for the fraught reception of his claims since
his reluctance to reveal the exact details of his discov-
eries clearly fostered popular disbelief and pedantic
professional jealousies.
Pouncy was copying prints and drawings as early
as 1855 but the un-gentlemanly grilling which this
provincial entrepreneur received from the Photographic
Society came to a head 1858 (with Roger Fenton in the
chair) and was fi rst unravelled by Arthur T. Gill in a
series of two articles in 1965. The complex story of how
a pioneer determined not be overwhelmed if not bullied
by the combined scientifi c might of London prompted
Gill to ask whether this surprisingly dramatic meeting
“did not nearly come to blows” (Photographic Journal,
February 1965, 57). To several authoritative audiences
Pouncy demonstrated his ability to produce prints but he
would not divulge the exact process—individual prints
were, and still are, very convincing, but they did not lend
themselves to mass production so Pouncy’s discovery
was soon superseded by more robust processes which
could be applied on a commercial and industrial scale.
The Victoria and Albert Museum holds at least one print
which proves just how tonally rich Pouncy’s images
could be in comparison with the rather less satisfactory
views reproduced in his famous publication Dorsetshire
Photographically Illustrated (1857) which can claim
to be the fi rst to transfer photographic images into
published illustrations—though these look much more
like lithographs than photographs.
Pouncy, whose own confi dence can hardly have
been aided by the consistent misspelling of his name
(Pouncey) over three consecutive meetings by the oth-
erwise punctilious Photographic Society, was not going
to be forced to reveal every detail of his revolutionary
carbon process which promised to make permanent
images often still infamous for their evanescence: he
was well aware that he would “have the credit of one of
the greatest discoveries photography has ever known”
(Photographic Journal, 11 December 1858, 91). Despite
this lack of commercial success it would still be true to
say about him that “there need be no more lamentation
over fading photographs” (The Builder, 31 October
1868, 800). It is clear that on many occasions that he
could show examples of his process so it is with some
justifi cation that he claims “I can produce in printing
ink of any colour direct from the negative photographic
positives, negatives, transparencies, transfers for litho-
graphic or press printing, and photographs in ceramic
colours, which can be transferred to and burnt on china,
earthenware, &c” (British Journal of Photography,
January 13 1865, 18).
His process turned out in the end to be far less suc-
cessful than that of Pretsch and Poitevin and their suc-
cessors like Swan. Poitevin won the prestigious Duc de
Luynes competition in France: Pouncy was awarded
the silver medal and complained of French perfi dy.
Pouncy never conceded his claims and for a period of
at least ten years in several countries continued such
a concerted campaign that it has successfully baffl ed
photographic bibliographers ever since. He certainly
applied his skills in an apparently successful colour
reproduction process for paintings in conjunction with
his son Walter (the 1868 patent) which is still in need
of a modern study by historians of art and printing
quite apart from photography. The quite conventional
Pouncy studios in Dorchester are the locus of several
photographic puzzles needing further scrutiny. Even be-
fore taking up photography John Pouncy was a painter,
glazier, carver, gilder and dealer in oil paintings so it is
clear that he continued mix and apply these skills us-
ing photographic techniques to the point where the Art
Journal gave a favourable endorsement in an undated
article (presumably of the late 1860s) in relation to the
colour copying of paintings by John Faed. This later
manifestation of a permanent colour process was read to
Photographic Society of Scotland in 1864 (described in
The British journal of Photography, 1865). The extent
of colour printing or application to ceramics associated
with Pouncy remains uncertain.
Though Pouncy was championed by Thomas Sutton
and was much feted, by the 1870s he would have known
about the more viable variants of his process being
brought to industrial success by photographers like Adol-
phe Braun and companies like the London Stereoscopic