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Daguerre’s work in France generated a wave of interest
in photographic science, particularly on the part of Sir
John Herschel FRS, who had followed newspapers and
other printed accounts of the new inventions. Herschel
quickly provided his own important contributions to
both Talbot and the wider world, most importantly on
the use of sodium thiosulphate as a fi xing agent. His
photochemical experiments were published by the Royal
Society in three major papers as were basic coinages
such as ‘photography,’ ‘positive’ and ‘negative.’ These
terms were in circulation amongst the Fellowship well
before their fi rst appearance in print. Herschel himself
developed several novel photographic processes which
were communicated to the Royal Society, notably the
chrysotype and cyanotype and remained for some time
an unoffi cial consultant and prime mover on matter
concerning photography.
As knowledge of the new images gained currency
among Britain’s scientists, other important photographic
researches were relayed to the Society, often encour-
aged or mediated by Herschel. Thus, Robert Hunt FRS
(1807–1887) published not only in the Philosophical
Transactions, but also produced the fi rst important popu-
lar digest on photographic technique. Joseph Bancroft
Reade FRS (1801–1870), meanwhile, investigated and
to an extent repeated his peers’ work on the usefulness of
gallic acid in developing latent images, reporting on his
work to the Society. In addition to improving elements
of processing, Fellows also looked almost immediately
for applications of the photograph to scientifi c work. As
early as 1839, the use of sensitized paper as a recording
medium for barometric and meteorological instrument
observations was being discussed by the circle of Robert
Were Fox FRS (1789–1877).
It was not just the scientifi c elite who were caught
up in the excitement of photography. The formal de-
velopment of photographic science was accompanied
by popular interest, the general currency of which
owed much to the personal networks of the Society’s
Fellows. Thus, for example, the fi rst serially-published
photographic book (and one with serious natural his-
tory intent) was Anna Atkins’ British algae. Atkins
(1799–1871) adopted Herschel’s blueprinting technique
for the purpose; her father was John George Children
(1777–1852) a Fellow of the Royal Society and chair-
man of the 1839 meeting of the Society at which W H F
Talbot had described his process for the fi rst time.
That Royal Society’s scientists themselves played a
role in popular photography is evidenced by the work
of Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS (1802–1875) and Sir
David Brewster FRS (1781–1868) on stereoscopic pho-
tography, a popular offshoot of a development which
had serious scientifi c merit. In the aftermath of the Great
Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857, for example the Society
(via Robert Mallet FRS) fi nanced the gathering of dam-
age evidence and earth movement using, in part, stereo
photographs and these were also used for astronomical
purposes. However the greatest single contribution of the
Society and its Fellows in this respect was in the relaxing
of Fox Talbot’s calotype patents. Many of the Society’s
principally-concerned Fellows provided evidence on
the merits of the patents and on the history of Talbot’s
researches, while the Society’s then-President, William
Parsons 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800–1867) cowrote a crucial
letter to Talbot in 1852 which had signifi cant impact on
his relenting in aspects of his claims.
The Society continued to be interested in scientifi c
applications of photography in the 1850s and 1860s.
Many of these are very well-known. Warren de la Rue
FRS (1815–1889) took important steps in astronomical
photography. His initial work on the moon was pri-
vately conducted, inspired by daguerreotypes he had
seen at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and such images
proved more useful than the human eye in resolving
lunar features. His solar work, particularly the cost of
producing regular photo-heliograph images at Kew, was
underwritten by the Royal Society and results were the
subject of a Royal Society Bakerian Lecture by de la
Rue in 1862. At the opposite scale, the Society provided
research support to the physician Richard Leach Mad-
dox (1816–1902), then producing photo-micrographs as
illustrative material for paper submissions to the Society.
Maddox would later perfect lightweight gelatine plates
for photographic use.
An under-researched aspect of the Royal Society’s
role in promoting photography lies in the organisation’s
regular use of images at its annual exhibitions of sci-
ence. In the 19th century these were known as soirees or
conversaziones. At these events the latest developments
in scientifi c research were (and still are) presented to
invited audiences and in their earliest incarnations, pho-
tographs were themselves the subject of display. One
famous later Victorian participant was the photographer
Eadweard James Muybridge (1830–1903) who in 1889
presented his instantaneous photographs of animal mo-
tion. The event concealed an episode that refl ected very
badly on the Society. Muybridge had submitted a paper
on ‘Animal locomotion’ for publication by the Society
in 1883 but its author was quite unfairly suspected
of plagiarism and it remained unpublished, thereby
temporarily damaging Muybridge’s reputation as the
originator of motion photography.
As the 19th century drew to a close, the use of
standard photographic methods in support of scientifi c
work and publication became a matter of routine and
the Society’s immediate involvement in photography
waned in favour of more specialist organisations. To
put this into perspective, photography was a relative
novelty in scientifi c travels of the 1850s, such as Mallet’s
work in Naples and that by Charles Piazzi-Smyth FRS