page_title: Mungo Ponton
section_title: Inventor
hierarchical_section_title: Mungo Ponton / Inventor
caption_attribution_description: Plate O, from Mungo Ponton, The Beginning: Its When and Its How
context_page_description: Mungo Ponton FRS FRSE was a Scottish inventor who in 1839 created a method of permanent photography based on potassium dichromate.
context_section_description: Ponton's fame predates his photographic discoveries, even if he is mainly remembered for his contributions to photography.
  On 20 June 1834, Ponton became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were John Shank More, James Nairne, Thomas Stewart Traill, David Boswall Reid, Robert Allan and James Finlay Weir Johnston. In 1838, the Scottish Society of Arts awarded Ponton the silver medal for his contributions to the development of the electrical telegraph.
  In 1839, while experimenting with an early photographic process published that year by Henry Fox Talbot, Ponton discovered the light-sensitising effect of potassium dichromate. He presented his findings to the Scottish Society of Arts on 29 May. Ponton did not attempt to patent his photographic process and published his findings in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. Others experimented with his discovery, including Talbot, Edmond Becquerel, Alphonse Poitevin, and John Pouncey, some of whom patented their photographic techniques. Dichromate sensitisation provided the basis for the carbon print and gum bichromate photographic processes, as well as some photoresists used in the printing industry and other industrial applications.
  Ponton continued to work on photography and in 1845 the Society again awarded him a silver medal for his process for measuring the hourly variation in temperature on photographic paper. That year he also developed a variation on the calotype process to allow shorter exposure times.
caption: A plate of drawings of pollen from Ponton's book The Beginning: Its When and Its How (1871)[7]
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