1514
was the fi rst to propose sensitising the emulsion before
coating, producing a much more reliable result.
Wratten’s name, however, lives on in the working
lives of present-day photographers in the classifi cation
code which he and Mees developed for the range of cam-
era and safelight fi lters which Wratten & Wainwright
introduced before 1909.
The rationale behind the numbering of his fi lter
system seems somewhat arbitrary, but does have a basic
structure to it. He started with low numbers applied to
yellow fi lters, higher numbers for oranges, red and ma-
gentas, and higher yet for greens and blues. Numbered
between 80 and 85, he listed fi lters which adjusted the
colour temperature of the light reaching the fi lm, with
a range of miscellaneous fi lters occupying the range
from 87 upwards. Of course, with the introduction of
colour fi lms, the Wratten fi lter list has been updated and
expanded but, almost a century after their introduction,
Wratten numbers are still the most commonly used to
denote a fi lter’s colour and character.
Wratten & Wainwright’s plates so interested George
Eastman that he visited Croydon to see the company’s
facilities in 1912, and was so impressed by Mees that
he offered him a post in New York. The company was
bought out by Eastman Kodak later that year—one of
the specifi ed conditions upon which Mees would agree
to work for Kodak’s new research department—and the
workforce, including Wratten, transferred to the staff of
Kodak Ltd. Mees ultimately became Kodak’s Director
of Research.
Frederick Wratten died in London on April 8, 1926
at the age of 86.
John Hannavy
See also: Eder, Joseph Maria; Fry, Samuel; Mawson
& Co; Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson; Dry Plate Negatives:
Gelatine; and Dry Plate Negatives.
Further Reading
Channing, Norman, and Dunn, Mike, British Camera Makers,
Esher: Parkland Designs, 1995.
Collins, Douglas, The Story of Kodak, New York: Harry N
Abrams, 1990.
Eder, Josef Maria, History of Photography, New York: Dover
Publications, 1978.
Gernsheim, Helmut, The Rise of Photography 1850–1880, Lon-
don: Thames & Hudson, 1988.
Mees, C.E. Kenneth, From Dry Plate to Ektachrome Film, New
York: Ziff Davis, 1961.
Sipley, Louis Walton, Photography’s Great Inventors, Philadel-
phia: American Museum of Photography, 1965.
WYNFIELD, DAVID WILKIE (1837–1887)
British painter and photographer
David Wilkie Wynfi eld was born in 1837 in India, the
son of Captain James Stainback Winfi eld of the 47th
Bengal Native Infantry, and Sophia Mary Borroughes.
The family returned to England in the early 1840s, upon
Captain Winfi eld’s retirement. Wynfi eld’s mother was
the niece and adopted daughter of acclaimed Scottish
painter of genre scenes Sir David Wilkie. Yet the young
Wynfi eld did not immediately follow in the footsteps
of his namesake (and godfather), initially intending to
enter the priesthood.
In 1856, Wynfi eld decided to study art with his-
torical painter James Mathews Leigh. Leigh’s studio
fostered the St. John’s Wood Clique, a group of young
artists—Philip Hermogenes Calderon, J. E. Hodgson,
G. D. Leslie, Henry Stacy Marks, Val Prinsep, George
A. Storey, Fred Walker, William Frederick Yeames, and
Wynfi eld—who would meet weekly at each other’s
homes to sketch a set theme and critique the results.
These men, many of whom had taken an initial study
tour of Europe, had gravitated to London in the mid-
1850s, where they formed a uniquely British, gentle-
manly version of bohemia in which like-minded coteries
of painters, illustrators, and writers dedicated themselves
to establishing a “British School.” Following Leigh’s
teaching, Wynfi eld adopted historical subject matter
and highly illusionistic rendering. He fi rst showed at
the Royal Academy in 1859 and appeared regularly
thereafter, gaining a modest reputation and a steady
income as a specialist in subjects from English history,
though never achieving the rank of Academician. He
changed the spelling of his surname around 1860, prob-
ably to avoid confusion with the slightly older painter
of historical genre scenes J. D. Wingfi eld.
A social group above all, the St. John’s Wood Clique
dabbled in amateur theatricals; they also participated
together in the 38th Middlesex Corps of the Artists’
Volunteer Rifl es, one of many such companies that
sprung up in the spring of 1860 in response to Napoleon
III’s expansionist policies. Most participants abandoned
the Corps after a brief period, but for Wynfi eld (who
never married) the comradeship was clearly important,
for he remained in the Corps into the 1880s, rising to
the rank of captain. It is not known exactly when or
why Wynfi eld took up photography, but his friendship
with Frederick Richard Pickersgill—painter, amateur
photographer, and son-in-law of Roger Fenton—may
have been infl uential.
Wynfi eld’s most signifi cant photographic project,
begun around 1861, was a series of portraits of art-
ists—not only painters, but also architects and graphic
artists—in Tudor and Renaissance costume. He regis-
tered ten of these for copyright on 8 December 1863
and exhibited a selection at a meeting of the Graphic
Society in mid-January 1864. Henry Hering of Regent
Street published a series of the portraits under the title
The Studio: A Collection of Photographic Portraits of