1220
as ‘Lewellyn’), the Count de Montizon, Hugh Owen,
Alfred Rosling, Charles Vignoles, several of whom had
also exhibited at the Society of Arts at the end of the pre-
vious year. In his eloquent introduction to the catalogue
for that exhibition, Fenton had written that the society
“will be the reservoir to which will fl ow, and from
which will be benefi cially distributed, all the springs of
knowledge at present wasting unproductively.”
The fi rst issue of the Journal of the Photographic
Society was published on March 1st 1853, and with
only minor interruptions, has been published ever since.
Despite having a membership a little shy of four hundred
by the mid 1850s, the popularity of the journal amongst
the entire photographic community meant that it was
producing four thousand copies per issue. Its founding
premise—that it would serve as a conduit for an inter-
change of ideas and successes amongst photographers
in all countries—has held good ever since.
The topics covered in early editions of the journal
ranged from transcripts of lectures given at meetings,
and in-depth discussions on the chemical composi-
tion of sensitising and developing baths, to the rolling
controversy over whether photography was an art of a
science. Reprints of articles published in la Lumière
were also included, as were reports on the proceedings
of regional photographic societies, and transcripts of key
lectures given in Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh.
A thriving letters column soon became a mainstay of the
publication, allowing both town and country members
to share their experiences, their diffi culties, and their
discoveries.
Within six months of the formation of the society,
Queen Victoria and Price Albert had agreed to become
patrons, initiating a Royal association with the society
which has endured to this day and which, in 1894, culmi-
nated in the change of name to the Royal Photographic
Society of Great Britain. It was Prince Albert who,
unwittingly, resurrected Claudet’s idea of a permanent
collection of members’ works in 1854, but several years
passed before the idea was acted upon. In the meantime,
infrequent albums of members’ work were produced
and circulated by groups within the society, operating
under the names of The Photographic Club, and The
Photographic Exchange Club.
One of the initiatives contained within both Claudet’s
and Fenton’s proposals was the mounting of an annual
exhibition, and the fi rst such display opened at the
Society of British Artists, on London’s Suffolk Street,
with an evening soirée on 3rd January 1854. The Annual
Exhibition remains a focal point of the Society’s year
today. In those Victorian exhibitions, the majority of the
works were for sale, the society augmenting its funds
by taking a 10% commission off the sale price.
By the end of the fi rst year, with professional photog-
raphers assuming a greater infl uence over the proceed-
ings of the society, the fi rst Annual General Meeting in
February 1854 voted, by show of hands, to exclude all
professional photographers and photographic dealers
from sitting on Council of holding offi ce within the
society. Fenton, at the end of his fi rst year as secretary
of the society he had helped form, informed the meeting
that were this to be implemented, he would feel obliged
to resign—he was at the beginning of his own eminent
career as a professional photographer. After further
discussion, the meeting was persuaded of the folly of
such a move, and the vote reversed. The Photographic
Society was not unique in having to learn to live with
the uneasy marriage of amateurs and professionals.
But it was the presence and the infl uence of the
scientists and the professionals who drove much of the
important early work undertaken by the society’s various
ad hoc committees.
Most signifi cant amongst those committees was what
became known as the ‘Fading Committee’ chaired by
Fenton in 1855, and set up to investigate the appar-
ent impermanence of both salted prints and albumen
prints. Under the chemical direction of T. F. Hardwich,
the committee came up with sound recommendations
for the avoidance of the problem—specifi cally using
fresh hypo, and gold toning. Hardwich had correctly
identifi ed that sulphur compounds in the prints, caused
by over-used fi xer were a primary cause of the prob-
lem—eliminated by using fresh fi xer—and that sulphur
in the atmosphere exacerbated fading, a factor reduced
by toning with gold chloride.
Other committees played important roles in the
further understanding of the chemistry of the collodion
process, and very signifi cantly, in moving towards the
establishment of realistic copyright protection for pho-
tographs and photographers.
These scientifi c and legal engagements did much to
raise the public profi le of the society, but beneath the
surface, the ongoing debate about the status of photogra-
phy within the worlds of art and science continued. The
uneasy marriage of photographic artist and photographic
scientists continued throughout the society’s fi rst forty
years until, in 1892, the Vice President Henry Peach
Robinson, frustrated by what he saw as a lack of recog-
nition of the art of photography, led a breakaway group
to leave the society and establish what became known
as the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring. Their manifesto
stated that the breakaway group had been established “as
a means of bringing together those who are interested
in the development of the highest form of Art of which
Photography is capable,” and was a direct response
to their belief that the society’s direction was biased
against them. The recently elected President, Sir Wil-
liam de Wiveleslie Abney was one of the leading (and
most opinionated and widely published) photographic
scientists of his day, with a declared lack of interest in