782
Sometime between 1841 and 1843 Jones met and
photographed in Paris with Hippolyte Bayard who
had independently discovered a method of forming a
positive image on paper (through Jones, Bayard and
Talbot were eventually introduced to each other and
their respective pioneering processes). Jones persevered
independently with Talbot’s process until 1845 when
he renewed regular correspondence with him in which
Jones asked for tuition. Talbot responded by asking him
on a photographic excursion to York. Jones followed up
with a trip just outside London making views of Hamp-
ton Court taken on his own. The same year, he was also
invited to Talbot’s Reading Establishment. With renewed
enthusiasm and improved technical expertise he planned
an extensive photographic tour of the Mediterranean in
the company of Kit Talbot and Kit’s ailing wife, Lady
Charlotte. Talbot hoped to gain a stock of foreign views
through Jones’s excursion. Paper was prepared for him
at the Reading Establishment. In November 1845 he
travelled to France and Malta where he experienced
diffi culty in obtaining essential photographic supplies
locally and on order from Britain. While in Malta he
was visited by the Reverend George Bridges whom he
instructed in the calotype process. The trip was suddenly
disrupted by the death of Lady Charlotte. However,
Jones continued in 1846 to Sicily, Naples, Pompeii,
Rome and Florence, returning to Britain by early June
with numerous negatives.
Jones was by this time encountering fi nancial diffi -
culty and was anxious to sell his new negatives to Talbot.
Many of his prints were made available through Talbot’s
Reading Establishment. However, by 1846 the venture
was becoming unprofi table. Impressed by Jones’s skills,
Talbot asked him to manage premises in London in
the hope of making a new start in a more prominent
location. Jones refused but the business was eventually
taken on by Talbot’s assistant Nicolaas Henneman to
become the Regent Street Studios. Talbot and Jones
remained on good terms and his prints continued to be
sold at Regent Street. Despite his hopes—and Talbot’s
endorsement of his work—none of Jones’s pictures ap-
peared in The Pencil of Nature. He continued to make
photographs while travelling and views survive from
France, Belgium, Italy and Ireland and in numerous
British locations especially Ilfracombe, Bath, Bristol,
Cardiff and Swansea.
Jones’s interest in the technical advancement of
calotype photography is evidenced in his correspond-
ence with Talbot that shows how the process was refi ned
through Jones’s observations. Jones’s prints reveal his
experimentation with varnishing (to prevent fading),
retouching and hand colouring. He was also one of the
fi rst photographers to make use of the panoramic format
or ‘joiners’ and ‘double or treble views’ as he called
them. In 1853 he presented a paper On a Binocular
Camera (Journal of the Photographic Society, Volume
1, 1854, pp. 60-61) to the Photographic Society of Lon-
don of which he was one of the fi rst members. By the
early 1850s, the calotype had been largely superseded
by the introduction of glass negatives and albumen
prints. Jones’s last known correspondence with Talbot
is from 1853.
After his father’s death in 1847 Jones had gained
fi nancial independence, took ownership of Heathfi eld
House and become involved in related business affairs
and local politics largely to the exclusion of photog-
raphy. He also took up a household in Brussels where
his wife died in 1856. He is not known to have made
any photographs after that time though he continued to
paint. Jones’ second marriage was to Portia Jane Smith
in 1858. They had two daughters. Thereafter the fam-
ily lived at Bath with frequent visits to the continent.
Jones’ fi rst daughter died on 29 June 1877 shortly be-
fore her father who died at Lansdown Crescent, Bath
on 7 November 1877. He was buried in Swansea at St.
Mary’s church.
Calvert Jones’s important contribution to the develop-
ment of photography is now being realised after many
years of neglect following his death. He was one of
the few Britons to have produced a substantial body of
calotypes in Britain and abroad. His marine studies were
made at a time of major transition in shipping from sail
to steam and are of signifi cant historic worth. Similar
historical value can be placed upon his variety of archi-
tectural studies taken from his preferred oblique angle
or as a detailed partial view. His fi gure studies within
architectural settings and environmental portraits are
unique to Jones as a photographer during the period in
which he was working (and it may be noted that Jones
himself likely appears in many of his own photographs).
However, his most signifi cant contribution to the early
development of photography lay in his ability to fuse
technical skill with artistic training, intentions and
results. Jones revealed his understanding of both the
simplicity and challenge of photography as an artistic
medium, when he wrote to Talbot: “The best artists, to
whom I have shown specimens, have been perfectly
enchanted, especially with details and foregrounds and
as nature is infi nite, so is the supply which I could fur-
nish: the great point being to select the proper subjects
from a proper position.” (Letter to W.H.F Talbot, June
9, 1846, quoted in Buckman, 29).
Martin BarnesBiography
Calvert Richard Jones was born in Swansea, South
Wales on 4 December 1802, the eldest of fi ve children.
The family were part of the landed gentry of the area.
The young Jones was attended Oriel College, Oxford