The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-10 00:00:00

WHO DISCOVERED PHOTOGRAPHY ?

A bewildering revelation has suggested this in-
quiry to the Saturday Review, and is thus com-
mented upon by our contemporary :
It has hitherto been considered a curious coinci-
dence that the process of taking permanent photo-
graphic pictures was discovered simultaneously in
England and France by Mr. Fox Talbot and M.
Deguerre—the former producing his pictures on
paper, the latter on silvered metal plates. Their
results were made public in 1839, and were respec-
tively called Talbotypes and Daguerrotypes. Prior
to this date, many scientific men had diligently
worked at the subject. The camera had been in-
vented at least 300 years before; and the influence
of light on the salts of silver was certainly known
as early as the 16th century. But those investiga-
tors who recorded the results of their labours only
chronicled a succession of failures in their endea-
vours to render permanent the pictures obtained ;
the latest confession of failure in this essential part
of the process being that made by Sir Humphrey
Davy in 1802.
At the meeting of the London Photographic So-
ciety, on Tuesday last, a large gathering of photo-
graphers assembled to ascertain what foundation
there might be for rumours which have been for
some time afloat concerning the discovery of certain
undoubted sun-pictures taken at the close of the
last century, and the very existence of which up to
the present time would afford sufficient evidence of
their durability. The whole history of the curious
circumstances connected with the discovery of these
pictures was related by Mr. Smith, Curator of the
Museum of Patents at South Kensington, to whom
belongs the credit of rescuing from impending de-
struction the numerous specimens exhibited. With
most praiseworthy industry he collected every scrap
of evidence, direct and corroborative, in order to
determine the means by which the exhibited pic-
tures were produced, the time when, and the person
by whom, they were taken. The story of the find-
ing of them may be briefly told, but nothing has
yet been discovered as to how they were done.
For purposes connected with his department, Mr.
Smith had to visit the old house at Soho, near Bir-
mingham, where the renowned engineering manu-
factory of Watt an i Boulton was originally esta-
blished. The works were about to be removed,
and a clearing out of the house was being effected.
It may be mentioned, en passant, that it was here
the famous body the Lunar Society, which included
among its members the chief scientific men of the day,
held their meetings on the night of every full moon;
and the dismantling of the library disclosed traces
which led the initiated to believe that thesemeetings
had something of the nature of Freemason Lodges.
It certainly seems reasonable to conjecture that
many matters, scientific and otherwise, were dis-
cussed at the meetings of such eminent men, other
than are set down in the meagre records of the
transactions of the Lunar Society.
Matthew Boulton resided at Soho until his death
in 1809. His library and its contents
appear to
when
have remain undisturbed for half a century,
in the course of clearing out, and whilst removing
a vast collection of old documents, there were found
a number of crumpled and folded sheets of paper
with pictures on them of a most puzzling kind—so
much so as to attract the attention of Mr. Smith,
he not being either an artist or photographer, and,
moreover, being fully occupiedat the time with far
different business. On smoothingout these pic-
of e l
l
tures,they were found to consist of copies
certain , on lar
wge
sheets of very coarse foolscap paper,
known designs by Angelina Kaufmann --
the porous water-marked paper being thickly
coated with some
varnish-like substance, on
the surface of which the picture had been
produced. All the sheets found in the library,
as well as others subsequently discovered, presented
glossy surface with minute
varnish-like cracks,
the same characters—a
the drawing of the figures most
elaborately finished, the lights and shades so fully
as to give much the effect of a mezzotint, and
raenndered
invariable reversal of the position of the figures,
so that all the Nymphs and Cupids (Kauffmann's
pet subjects) appeared to be left-handed. These
paper pictures were sent to London, and submitted
to the best authorities on the subjects of
drawing
and painting; and here the mystery about them
began, for they were pronounced to have been pro-
duced by some process entirely different from any-
thing previously seen, and certainly not to have
been done by hand. This led to immediate search
being made for any more of the pictures that
might exist, and also to inquiries, among the oldest
inhabitants, for any ono who had lived at Soho
in the time of Boulton, and could supply any in-
formation about them.

In a broker's shop were found several more of the
pictures, which had been brought from the house
as waste paper. One of these represented a large
figure picture by West, and was on two sheets of
paper, each about 2ft. by 18in., intricately cut at
the 'Joining place so that the line of union might
fall at the edge of a shadow, and not be perceived
when the two halves were put together to form the
complete picture. Further research at Soho also
led to the discovery of a couple of silvered-metal
platen, each about the size of a sheet of note-paper,
precisely resembling in appearance those used by
Daguerre iu the early days of photograptih;;
•
taken
from each of these plates was a faint image
of the house at Soho, so unmistakeably ken
from nature, and so evidently produced by the aid
of light, that all experts of any authority
pronounced them to be photographedAttad to these
Pictures taken
au at once
directly by means of a camera.
that they were
the
plates was a memorandum stating che
sun-pictures representing house prior to certain
alterations made in 1791. Following out their
search as to the means by which these pictures Were
produced, the investigators learnt that there had
once been found
a camera in Boulton's library,
answering in description to the kind of instrument
required for plates of this size. Unfortunately this
had been given away, and great was the hunt to