235235
CAFFIN, CHARLES H.
To support it’s sensitised goods the fi rm promoted
a range of exposure tables and calculators. 10,000 of
its own calculator had been sold by November 1897
and sales of nearly 20,000 for Dibdins calculator, were
claimed by July 1899. Cadett also designed exposure
tables with Lambert which sold under their joint name.
Between 1892 and 1899 the fi rm published a free
periodical called Dry Plates which went from an initial
circulation of 5000 copies to 10,000 by the third number
and 30,000 copies by 1898. Cadett authored a number
of photographic publications including some with his
earlier co-patentee James Gale who also later edited
Dry Plates.
Cadett & Neall’s plate coating machines, based on
Cadett’s patents, were widely acknowledged as superior.
They were manufactured by R W Munro of London
at a cost of £175 and they were used by several large
plate manufacturers in Britain, including the Britannia
Works Company, later Ilford, Limited, who all rented
them for £100 a year.
In 1897 the fi rm’s growth and size led to it becom-
ing a limited company with a share capital of £75,000.
Cadett explained in Dry Plates that this change of status
was required to extend the business and to add print-
ing papers to the fi rms output for which capital was
required. The new company was formally incorporated
on 20 May 1897.
A standard agreement between the two partners
and the company dated 20 June 1897 confi rmed that
the company would purchase all the goodwill, trade
names and trade marks, freehold premises and plant
and machinery, stock, and all property in connection
with the business. Cadett and Neall would continue
to manufacture plates by a ‘secret process known as
Cadett’s process’ for which the consideration would be
60,000 shares in the company.
All shares were initially owned by the two families
but Cadett and Neall resigned as permanent directors in
- The reason for this became apparent by 27 April
1904 when George Davison, the managing director of
Kodak Ltd, become a director and a special resolution
which was passed on 17 May was presented for fi ling
by Kodak Ltd. By 1907 all shares in the company were
held by Kodak through George Davison, George East-
man, Henry Strong and the Eastman Kodak Company.
The following year the registered offi ce of the company
moved to Kodak’s manufacturing plant in Headstone
Drive, Wealdstone. The company was formally wound
up on 28 November 1946.
Kodak’s interest in Cadett and Neall Ltd lay not so
much with the retail competition that the fi rm provided,
although the popularity of it’s plates and sales success
would have been attractive, but in it’s technical expertise
in the mass-production of plates and fi lm using Cadett’s
own machinery at a time when Kodak was looking to
stifl e competition in photographic manufacturing and to
take-over competitors. Its approach in 1902 to take over
Ilford Ltd had attracted bad publicity and had ultimately
failed and Cadett and Neall Ltd offered a less high profi le
but signifi cant business which could bolster Kodak’s
own manufacturing output and allow it an insight into
its competitors in the sensitised goods business.
Following their departure from the business both
Cadett and Neall appear to have had no further signifi -
cant involvement in photography. Walter Neall had a
new home designed by the architect Douglas G Round
with a garden by Gertrude Jekyll between 1909–1911
in Guildford, Surrey. Cadett remained in Ashford.
Michael Pritchard
See Also: Bromide Print; Eastman, George; Kodak;
and Camera Design: 6 Kodak, (1888–1900).Further Reading
Cadett & Neall, Ashtead. Dry Plates. A magazine devoted to the
interests of professional & amateur photographers. Vol 1 no.
1 (September 1892), vol 5 no. 4. (December, 1899).
William Welling, Photography in America: The Formative Years,
Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, 1978.CAFFIN, CHARLES H. (1854–1918)
American art critic
Caffin was born in Sittingbourne, Kent, England
on 4 June 1854 to Reverend Charles Smart Caffi n, a
Church of England minister and his wife Harriet. Both
parents were skilful amateur artists and fostered a life-
long appreciation of art in their son. Caffi n graduated
from Pembroke College at Oxford University in 1877
and, following a stint as a teacher, turned to the stage.
Caffi n worked as an actor and manager with Ben Greet
and His Shakespearean Players, an itinerant troupe
offering outdoor plays. He married a fellow player,
Caroline Scurfi eld, and immigrated to the United States
in 1892. In America, Caffi n found employment in the
decorations department of the Columbian Exposition
at Chicago where he painted mural decorations from
the artists’ designs. The fair celebrated the promise of
a modern world and probably affi rmed Caffi n’s belief
that a new age requires a new art. After the fair, he made
cartoons from artists’ sketches for use by mural painters
at the new Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and
used the experience to receive his fi rst writing assign-
ment. For the handbook published at the completion of
the library, Caffi n contributed a critical appreciation of
art. He settled in New York in 1897, spending several
years in Mamaroneck on Long Island, before moving to
New York City by 1908. In 1897, Caffi n also began his
journalistic career and soon immersed himself in every
aspect of the New York art world.