HF The History of Photography 600pág

232 The collodion period
daguerreotype and and calotype period, wfrh the much faster collodion plate they
became much more widespread and general.
The University of London, recognizing that photography was one of the educational
needs of the time, introduced it into the curriculum at King's College in
December 1856. A large glasshouse and darkrooms were erected, and T. F. Hardwich,
author of the first manual of photographic chemistry (1855), was appointed lecturer.
Even Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a darkroom constructed at Windsor
Castle, and became skilled in 'the black art' (so called because the nitrate of silver
bath caused black stains on hands and clothes of a careless operator), in which they
had already shown their interest by becoming patrons of the Photographic Society
within four months of its foundation. How infectious the craze was is shown by the
Queen's gift of a photographic outfit to the King of Siam. In December 1857 she
sent the Empress Eugenie as a New Year present an album of photographs of her
children and Windsor Castle, taken by Roger Fenton. Lady Eastlake, wife of the
Society's first President, summed up vividly her impressions of the new state of
affairs :
Tens of thousands are now following a new business, practising a new pleasure,
speaking a new language, and bound together by a new sympathy. for it is one of
the pleasant characteristics of this pursuit that it unites men of the most diverse
lives, habits, and stations, so that whoever enters its ranks finds himself in a kind
of republic, where he needs apparently but to be a photographer to be a brother.
... The very talk of these photographers is unlike that of all other men, either of
business or pleasure. Their style is made up of the driest facts, the longest words,
and the most high-fl.own rhapsodies. Slight improvements in processes, and slight
variations in conclusions, are discussed as if they involved the welfare of mankind.
They seek each other's sympathy, and they resent each other's interference, with
an ardour of expression at variance with all the sobrieties of business and the habits
of reserve; and old-fashioned English mauvaise honte is extinguished in the excitement,
not so much of a new occupation, as of a new state.2
Several more photographic societies were founded in London and in the provinces,
and by 1861 two dozen had been established. The most exclusive of these was the
Amateur Photographic Association, founded in September that year. Indeed, the
success of the Association, which flourished for forty-four years, was said to have been
largely due to the Presidency of the Prince of Wales, who, perhaps more than photography,
was the rallying point in this Association, which included among its members
the Archbishop of York, several peers, Fellows of the Royal Society, and the chief
cashier of the Bank of England. The Honorary Secretary of the Association (to which
professional photographers were not eligible as members) was A. J. MELHUISH,
inventor of the roller-slide. A grand soiree of the Association took place in February
1865 at his private residence in York Place, Baker Street, which was attended by the
Prince of Wales and about 400 members and guests.3 Everything was arranged on the
most lavish scale : 1,000 photographs were on view, champagne fl.owed, and Rimmell's
celebrated perfume-fountain, 'which had first graced the bridal chamber of the
Princess of Wales at Osborne, imparted an agreeable fragrance to the crowded
rooms.'
Examination of the number of photographs shown at the three leading exhibitions
in January 1857 affords an interesting comparison not only of the numbers hung, but
also of the relative popularity of the different processes. At the Photographic Society
of London, 726 photographs were displayed; at the Manchester Photographic