William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE FRAS (; 11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877) was an English scientist, inventor and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries. His work, in the 1840s on photomechanical reproduction, led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. He was the holder of a controversial patent that affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. He was also a noted photographer who contributed to the development of photography as an artistic medium. He published The Pencil of Nature (1844–46), which was illustrated with original salted paper prints from his calotype negatives, and made some important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, Reading, and York.
A polymath, Talbot was elected to the Royal Society in 1831 for his work on the integral calculus, and researched in optics, chemistry, electricity and other subjects such as etymology and ancient history.
Table of Contents
- 1 Early life
- 1.1 The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot
- 1.2 William Henry Fox Talbot and the Promise of Photography (DISTRIBUTED ART)
- 1.3 First Photographs: William Henry Fox Talbot and the Birth of Photography
- 1.4 The Pencil of Nature
- 1.5 William Henry Fox Talbot: Traces Of Light/Huellas de Luz
- 1.6 Fox Talbot (Electa Editrice Portfolios)
- 1.7 William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography (Volume 23) (Studies in British Art)
- 1.8 The Black Rose
- 1.9 There's No Business Like Show Business
- 1.10 Untamed
Early life
Talbot was the single-handedly child of William Davenport Talbot, of Lacock Abbey, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, and of Lady Elisabeth Fox Strangways, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Ilchester. His governess was Agnes Porter who had as well as educated his mother. Talbot was educated at Rottingdean, Harrow School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded the Porson Prize in Classics in 1820, and graduated as twelfth wrangler in 1821. From 1822 to 1872, he communicated papers to the Royal Society, many of them upon mathematical subjects. At an beforehand period, he began optical researches, which forward-thinking bore fruit in link with photography. To the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal in 1826 he contributed a paper on “Some Experiments on Coloured Flame”; to the Quarterly Journal of Science in 1827 a paper on “Monochromatic Light”; and to the Philosophical Magazine papers on chemical subjects, including one on “Chemical Changes of Colour.”
Last update 2021-08-06