121
the possibility of commercial exploitation of his helio-
graph process which produced etchings on metal and
had been developed in 1826–27. On the recommenda-
tion of William Towsend Aiton (1766–1849), he met
Bauer on 20 November who asked him to submit to the
Royal Society an account of his heliogravure process.
Niépce wrote a longer four-page account Notice sur
l’héliographie dated 8 December 1827 in which he
referred to fi xing the image of objects by the action of
light. Despite introductions to Dr William Hyde Wol-
laston and Sir Everard Home both Vice Presidents the
paper was never published by the Society and no lecture
was given because Niépce would not disclose the detail
of his process. Niépce brought with him experimental
plates with images made using light-sensitive bitumen
of judea, a type of asphaltum, which were to be shown
at the proposed lecture; these and the account were left
with Bauer on Niépce’s departure.
Niépce’s plates that had been given to Bauer were
eventually exhibited at a Royal Society soiree on 9
March 1839 alongside photogenic drawings of Talbot
and Herschel. Three heliographs showing copies of
engravings of Cardinal d’Amboise, Christ Carrying the
Cross and Elodie, a stage design eventually ended up in
the collection of the Royal Photographic Society. The
only picture from life View from the Window at Le Gras
circa 1826 was rediscovered by Helmut Gernsheim in
1952 and now resides at the University of Texas and is
considered the world’s fi rst photograph.
Niépce returned to France probably in early Febru-
ary 1828 disappointed at the lack of interest in his work
and his brother died at on 10 February. Bauer died on
11 December 1840. Both were buried in St Anne’s
Churchyard, Kew Green.
Michael Pritchard
BAUSCH AND LOMB
The origins of Bausch and Lomb date to 1853 when John
Jacob Bausch (1830–1926) established an opticians
shop in Rochester where he sold spectacles imported
from Germany. He was supported financially by a
Rochester-based German cabinet maker Henry Lomb
(1828–1908) and on Lomb’s return from the Civil War
the two began a formal partnership in 1863 as Bausch &
Lomb. Lomb later moved to New York as the company’s
representative from 1866 to 1880. From 1866 until
1876 the company was known as the Vulcanite Optical
Instrument Company, reverting back to the Bausch and
Lomb Optical Company in 1876. The fi rm expanded
rapidly establishing factories in Rochester and in 1874
they moved to St Paul Street where they were to remain
until 1975.
In 1874 Bausch’s eldest son, Edward, began the
expand the fi rm’s manufacturing activities to optical in-
struments and Ernst Gundlach was hired. Gundlach had
worked in various European optical fi rms before emi-
grating to the United States. He left Bausch and Lomb in
1878 and established his own optical and photographic
business. A microscope was the fi rst successful prod-
uct and by 1903, 44,000 had been sold. Edward Busch
(1854–1944) was the driving force behind the fi rm’s
photographic optical activities and patented an iris dia-
phragm shutter in 1888 and the Plastigmat lens in 1900.
He became president of the company on his father’s
death and was a major benefactor in Rochester.
In 1883 the company began to make photographic
lenses and in 1888 they began making photographic
shutters. By 1903, 500,000 photographic lenses and
550,000 shutters had been made. The fi rm’s lenses
and shutters were used almost exclusively by Eastman
Kodak from the introduction of the original Kodak of
1888 and the two companies enjoyed a long mutually
benefi cial relationship. Bausch and Lomb’s high profi t
margins, even after negotiations to reduce these, fi nally
encouraged George Eastman to establish his own lens
making works from 1911 after which Kodak’s orders
quickly declined.
The fi rm was licensed by Carl Zeiss in 1892 to make
Zeiss Anastigmat and other lenses for the American
market and they also made Compound and Compur
shutters for Deckel.
The fi rst world war ended these licensing arrange-
ments and as the supply of optical glass ceased in 1915
Bausch and Lomb became the fi rst American manufac-
turer of optical glass in the United States building on
experiments it had been conducting since 1912. By 1917
the company was producing upwards of 40,000 pounds
of barium crown glass per month, fulfi lling more than
two-thirds of the government’s wartime requirements
for glass for munitions. In 1919 it offered twenty-fi ve
different types of glass. Manufacture ceased in 1986.
The fi rm’s photographic lenses were used on televi-
sion cameras on the 1964 Ranger 7 spacecraft, but it was
increasingly moving into contact lenses and consumer
eye care products with approval in 1971 from the Federal
Drugs Administration to market soft contact lenses. The
fi rm remains in Rochester.
Michael Pritchard
See Also: Kodak; and Eastman, George.Further Reading
Reese V. Jenkins, Images & Enterprise. Technology and the
American Photographic Industry 1839–1925, Baltimore: John
Hopkins University Press, 1975.
Rudolf Kingslake. A History of the Photographic Lens. London:
Academic Press, 1989.
Rudolph Kingslake, The Photographic Manufacturing Compa-
nies of Rochester, New York, Rochester: George Eastman
House, 1997.