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Society of the Arts, and the Edinburgh School of Arts
which was the fi rst of many mechanics’ institutes which
were to later be set up all over Britain. He also played an
important role in the founding of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science, which was founded in
1831 with the aim of lobbying the government to pro-
mote science in Britain. Brewster became its president in
1850, despite his old fashioned views on the wave theory
of light. Brewster believed that science in Britain was in
decline, while it was on the ascendancy in Europe, and
wanted the government to help remedy the situation by
fi nancially supporting science and scientists. In 1838
he set up the St. Andrews Literary and Philosophical
Society, where Talbot fi rst displayed his calotypes.
Talbot sent examples to Brewster through the post,
thereby stimulating Brewster’s interest in photography.
Arguably, one of Brewster’s greatest contributions to the
history and development of photography in Scotland
was the fact that Brewster helped teach Robert Adamson
how to take photographs using Talbot’s new calotype
process, and then introduced Adamson to the painter,
David Octavius Hill, thereby initiating a partnership that
bore one of the most remarkable bodies of photographic
images ever to be produced.
Brewster succeeded in increasing the resolving power
of microscopes by using jewels for lenses instead of
glass, but the development proved to be impracticable
because of the increased costs involved (successful, but
expensive).
Today Brewster is remembered for his work on ster-
eoscopy, [and for the invention of the kaleidoscope].
He was not the fi rst to invent a stereoscopic viewer, but
Brewster did study the physiology of binocular vision,
and did develop a device which made the viewing of
stereoscopic photographs viable. Brewster’s stereoscope
was pre-dated by Charles Wheatstone, who was also in-
terested in binocular vision. Wheatstone had succeeded
in inventing a stereoscopic viewer prior to Brewster, and
even before the invention of photography itself, in 1832.
But Wheatstone’s apparatus was large and relatively
cumbersome compared to Brewster’s stereoscopic de-
vice. Prior to the invention of photography, stereoscopic
images had to be drawn, or created in a manner other
than photography. But there was enough of a similarity
between the two creations to cause confl ict, and Brewster
let his feelings towards Wheatstone be known when he
published papers on his lenticular stereoscope, and his
binocular camera, in 1849. In 1850 he took prototypes
with him to Parisian opticians, Françoise Soleil and
Jules Duboscq. They built a rudimentary stereoscopic
camera, which produced daguerreotype photographs,
and constructed a stereoscope viewer to accommodate
them. They displayed these in London at the Great Ex-
hibition in 1851, where they attracted the attention of
Queen Victoria. So, an example was made and presented
to Victoria by Brewster, in Soleil’s behalf. This ‘Royal
Patronage’ led to public demand and commercial suc-
cess for Brewster’s stereoscopic viewer. But Wheatstone
and Brewster entered into a public quarrel conducted
through the letter pages of The Times, over priority. Sir
John Herschel summarized the situation when he said,
‘Wheatstone invented the stereoscope; Brewster invented
a way of looking at stereoscopic pictures’ (N. J. Wade
ed., Brewster and Wheatstone on vision, 1983, 36).
Brewster infl uenced the development of scientifi c
instrumentation by improving existing devices, invent-
ing new ones like the kaleidoscope and lenticular stere-
oscope. As a major fi gure in optical research he was
able to infl uence patent law reform, and was invited
to be part of the jury for the Great Exhibition of 1851
and for the Paris Exhibition of 1855. In his lifetime he
published around 300 scientifi c papers, and over 1,200
books, articles and reviews. He was instrumental in
enabling Talbot’s new photographic process to be used
free of patent restrictions in Scotland. In 1808 he was
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
and was its General Secretary from 1819 to 1828, and
its President from 1864 until his death. In 1815 he was
elected Fellow of Royal Society and was awarded its
Copley medal (1815), Rumford medal (1818) and Royal
medal (1830) for his work on optics and the nature of
light. In 1820 he became a member of the Institution of
Civil Engineers. In 1816 the French Institute awarded
him a cash prize. In 1849 he was made one of only
eight foreign associates of the Académie des Sciences.
He was made a corresponding member of the French
Institute, and of the Royal Societies of St. Petersburg,
Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Vienna.
In 1847 he was awarded an Order of Merit by the King
of Prussia. In 1855 he was awarded the Cross of the
Légion d’Honneur by Emperor Napoleon III. This list
of honours is not exhaustive.
Brewster’s reputation as a scientist was considerable,
until he began to outlive his contemporaries, and found
himself unable to accept the new ideas coming from a
younger generation of scientists, until eventually his
refusal to relinquish an outmoded position based on
a Newtonian theory of light became untenable. From
then on his reputation began to suffer, until eventually,
towards the end of his life, he was marginalized, and
much of the important work he did was subsequently
not attributed to him.
At the age of seventy-four, Brewster re-married.
Jane Kirk Purnell (b. 1827) was the second daughter of
Thomas Purnell of Scarborough. David and Jane had a
daughter together. On the 10 February 1868, at the age
of 87, Brewster died of pneumonia and bronchitis at
Allerly, the house he had built outside Melrose, in the
Scottish borders.
The principles of refl ection that Brewster’s kaleido-