1210
Ross business became Thomas Ross & Co, then from
1871 Ross & Co and fi nally from 1898 Ross Ltd. During
the second half of the twentieth century the fi rm became
associated with the Houghton-Butcher photographic
business. It was last recorded as a manufacturer c. 1970
making binoculars before it was dissolved in c. 1975.
From 1830 Andrew Ross quickly established a high
reputation for his microscopes and he was responsible
for a number of signifi cant improvements in micros-
copy design some in conjunction with Joseph Jackson
Lister (1786–1869). Both were founder members of the
Microscopical Society of London. Ross was a supplier
of lenses and optical apparatus to William Henry Fox
Talbot from at least 1838 and Talbot also visited his
Regent Street shop. During one such visit on 30 March
1839 it is likely that Ross mentioned the work of the
Reverend J. B. Reade and his use of gallic acid when
preparing sensitized paper. Reade had previously spoken
to Ross about this, a fact which emerged in the 1854
Talbot v Laroche lawsuit.
Ross acted as an intermediary between Talbot and
the Parisian optician of Alphonse Giroux, the maker of
Daguerre’s camera, ordering two daguerreotype cameras
with lenses for 320 francs on 7 October 1839 following
two months of experimenting with the daguerreotype
and communication on the matter with Talbot. Talbot
was later to recommend Ross’s services in securing such
apparatus to Walter Trevelyan in 1842.
The Petzval lens was one of the fi rst lenses designed
specifi cally for photography being announced in 1841.
The lens worked at f/6 and Ross was immediately able to
improve it to work at f/4. Ross’s son, Thomas, working
in his father’s factory made a novel lens for Henry Collen
on 2 June 1841 being a double made of two cemented
achromatic lenses. It was not a commercial success be-
ing unable to compete with the superior defi nition of the
Petzval. Ross made other lenses for Talbot.
Henry Collen, a professional calotypist in London,
ordered a camera from Ross but by March 1842 was
complaining to Talbot that Ross had not delivered it
and probably never would as he was having diffi culties
with the curved paper holder made to correct the focus
of the lens. In August Collen was complaining to Talbot
that Ross had not delivered a large lens of wide aperture
he had ordered. This was never made. In 1848 Talbot
was recommending Ross’s enlarging camera to Thomas
Malone, another professional photographer.
This involvement with the British early photogra-
phers gave way to more commercial activities including
in c1860 a mammoth lens with a focal length of 6 feet
(sic) producing an image of 44 × 30 inches for John
Kibble of Glasgow. The camera to which it was attached
was mounted on wheels and drawn by a horse.
Aside from optics the fi rm also sold and made a
range of cameras and photographic equipment. An ex-
tant catalogue from 1855 records Ross’s success at the
1851 Exhibition for lenses and ‘the best camera in the
Exhibition’ and it details a range of portrait and land-
scape lenses, cameras, stands and accessories, together
with chemicals and equipment required to operate the
Calotype, Daguerreotype and collodion processes. From
1861, Ross was also responsible for making Thomas
Sutton’s camera for panoramic photography and con-
tinued making it’s distinctive water-fi lled lens. Ross’s
Universal Binocular camera of 1862 was a particular
success.
From 1864 Thomas Ross developed a range of lenses
called Doublets and based on his father’s Collen lens.
After Ross’s death in 1870 the fi rm brought in a series
of managers and lens designers including some from
Germany who continued to produce new photographic
lenses alongside the fi rms other optical products. In 1874
the fi rm brought out their portable and rapid symmetri-
cal lens calculated by F. H. Wenham. Ross was the fi rst
fi rm to employ a scientist as a lens mathematician and
Wenham was with the company from 1870 until 1888.
He was followed by Hugo Schroeder.
Ross was awarded various medals and diplomas for
their optics and claimed a list of the leading photogra-
phers of the period as users of the their lenses including:
Henry Barraud, Francis Bedford, Henry Dixon & Son,
Elliott & Fry, Thomas Fall, Robert Faulkner, Francis
Frith, Frank Good, Hills and Saunders, Payne Jennings,
Lock and Whitfi eld, J. E. Mayall, George Washington
Wilson and Frederick York.
In 1890 the fi rm became Zeiss’s London agents and
made many Zeiss lenses, including the Protar (from 1
April 1892), the Planar, Unar and the Rudolph-designed
Tessar, all under licence. Ross also made a version of a
Meyer lens under it’s own name as the Homocentric from
1902 which was a popular and long-lived design.
When Schroeder left Ross he was succeeded by J.
W. Hasselkus whose fi rst lens design was issued in- The fi rm established a large factory at Clapham
Common in 1899.
During the last years of the nineteenth century Ross
issued several new designs of camera to supplement their
traditional wooden fi eld and studio cameras. The fi rst
of their twin lens refl ex cameras the Portable (Divided)
camera was launched in 1890 and a single lens refl ex
camera launched in 1905 which was made by Kershaw
of Leeds. Other photographic optical equipment such
as optical lanterns was also sold.
Throughout the nineteenth century photographic
optics was just one part of the Ross company’s wider
optical manufacturing activities. While its involvement
in photographic optics was maintained well in to the
twentieth century cameras and associated photographic
equipment was increasingly being bought in from other
manufacturers and sold under the Ross name. Unlike