594
Talbot (see The Correspondence of William Henry
Fox Talbot, document number 03448), an offer Talbot
declined. When Glaisher stood down in 1892, William
de Wiveleslie Abney FRS was elected. (For comments
on Glaisher’s presidency, see Gernsheim, 1955, 256,
and Harker, 1979, 64).
Having left the Meteorological and Magnetic Ob-
servatory at Greenwich in 1874, aged 65, Glaisher
continued to be involved with, write reports for, and give
lectures at many learned societies and other institutions.
He was on the Executive Committee of the Palestine
Exploration Fund, its Chairman in 1880–1900, and
wrote reports on the meteorology of Jerusalem which
were published in the Fund’s Quarterly Statement. He
was a member of the Council of the Aeronautical Soci-
ety from its foundation in 1866 until his death, which
occurred on February 7th, 1903, two months before his
94th birthday. His funeral took place on February 11th at
St John’s Parish Church in Shirley, Croydon. A report in
The Times the following day described the arrangements
as having been of the simplest nature.
Caroline Marten
Biography
James Glaisher (1809–1903), Superintendent of the
Meteorological and Magnetic Department at the Royal
Observatory, Greenwich, studied meteorology and atmo-
spheric phenomena by ground-based observations and
in a series of scientifi c experiments during high-altitude
balloon ascents in the 1860s. A member of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, Glaisher
was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
in 1841, and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1849. He
helped to initiate the founding of the British Meteo-
rological Society in 1850, serving as a Secretary until
1873, and President in 1867-68. He worked to organize
meteorology into an exact science, promoting the use of
accurate, standardized instruments. He was a fellow of
the Microscopical Society, and its President in 1865–8.
Elected a member of the Photographic Society in 1854,
he was President from 1869–1874 and 1875–1892, in-
terested mainly in the practical, technical, and scientifi c
applications of photography. In 1843 he married Cecilia
Louisa Belville (1828–1892), who collaborated with
him on a paper about the formation of snow crystals. A
snow crystal drawn by Cecilia Louisa Glaisher forms the
basis of the emblem of the Royal Microscopical Soci-
ety. The Glaishers had three children, Cecilia Appelina
(1845–1932), James Whitbread Lee (1848–1928), and
Ernest Henry (1858–1885).
See also: Negretti & Zambra; Piazzi Smyth, Charles;
Reade, Joseph Bancroft; and Talbot, William Henry
Fox.
Further Reading
The Aeronautical Journal, 7:26, 1903, 22–4. London: The Royal
Aeronautical Society.
Buchanan, William, “State of the Art, Glasgow, 1855” in History
of Photography, 13:2, 1989, 165–80.
Coe, Brian, and Haworth-Booth, Mark, A Guide to Early Pho-
tographic Processes, London: Victoria & Albert Museum,
1983.
Gernsheim, Helmut, with Gernsheim, Alison, The History of
Photography: from the earliest use of the camera obscura in
the eleventh century up to 1914, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1955, 256.
Glaisher, James, “The Balloon and its Application” in The Leisure
Hour, 1864, 343–6.
Glaisher, James, The Photographic Journal, 5:82, 1859, 248–9,
& 5:86, 1859, 308–10. London: Taylor & Francis.
Glaisher, J., Flammarion, C., De Fonvielle, W., and Tissandier,
G., Travels in the Air, London: Richard Bentley, 1871.
Harker, Margaret. The Linked Ring: the Secession Movement in
Photography in Britain, 1892–1910, London: Heinemann
[for] The Royal Photographic Society, 1979, 64.
Roberts, Pam, The Royal Photographic Society Collection, Bath:
The Royal Photographic Society, 1999.
Schaaf, Larry, “Anna Atkins’ Cyanotypes: An Experiment in
Photographic Publishing” in History of Photography, 6:2,
1982, 151–72.
Schaaf, Larry, “Piazzi Smyth at Teneriffe” in History of Photog-
raphy 4:4, 1980, 289–307 & 5:1, 1981, 27–50.
Seiberling, Grace, with Bloore, Carolyn, Amateurs, Photography,
and the Mid-Victorian Imagination, Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Taylor, Roger. Photographic Exhibitions in Britain 1839–1865:
a compendium of photographers and their works, Ottawa:
National Gallery of Canada, 2002, Introduction, 16–20. http://www.
peib.org.uk/about/PEIB_introduction.doc.
The Photographic News, 6:210, 444, 1862, London: Thomas
Piper.
Tucker, Jennifer, “Voyages of Discovery on Oceans of Air: Sci-
entifi c Observation and the Image of Science in an Age of
“Balloonacy,” in Osiris, 2nd Series, 11, Science in the Field,
1996, 144–76.
Wilson, John L. “The Cyanotype” in Technology and Art: the
birth and early years of photography: the proceedings of the
Royal Photographic Society Historical Group conference,
1–3 September 1989, edited by Michael Pritchard, Bath: RPS
Historical Group, 1990, 19–25.GLAISTER, THOMAS SKELTON
(1824–1904)
Thomas Glaister was born 12 June 1824 in Holme Cul-
tram, Cumberland, England. His father was a mariner
who worked out of Maryport. Thomas trained as a car-
penter but later became a druggist. In 1849 he married
Elizabeth Gates, the widow of another mariner Joseph
Metcalfe. Thomas worked as a druggist in Chicago
and Woodstock, Illnois, then Burlington, Iowa before
taking up photography, joining the studio of the Meade
Brothers of New York. In November 1852 he landed
in Melbourne and established a branch studio for the
brothers in Melbourne. In 1855 after being joined by