HF The History of Photography 600pág

29 Emulsion papers and mass-production printing
The slowness of albumen paper, and its liability to fade, led several experimenters to
try applying to paper emulsions similar to those evolved for dry plates.
Collodio-chloride paper. Shortly after Sayce and Bolton's publication of their collodion
bromide emulsion for negatives, GEORGE WHARTON SIMPSON, editor of The
Photographic News, introduced a collodio-chloride of silver emulsion paper1 which
was considerably more sensitive and permanent than albumen paper and, like it, was
of the printing-out variety. In spite of its obvious advantages, however, no British
firm undertook its manufacture, though in 1868 ]. B. Obernetter of Munich successfully
introduced it into Germany. In the 188os and 189os it was made by a number
of firms and traded under the name of ' Aristotypie'. The emulsion was also used for
positive pictures on opal glass.
Gelatine bromide paper. Gelatine silver bromide paper was invented and first produced
in 1873 by PETER MAWDSLEY, founder and manager of the Liverpool Dry
Plate & Photographic Printing Company. He recommended it, both for the production
of paper negatives and for positive copies, in an article he contributed to The
British Journal Photographic Almanac for the year 1874, stressing the advantages of the
negative paper as compared with the weight and fragility of glass plates, and its lower
price-it was 20-25 per cent. cheaper-as well as its great speed for positive printing
by development. An exposure of a few seconds to gas or other artificial light was
sufficient, and to Mawdsley the advantages of bromide paper for direct enlargement
seemed obvious. However, his ideas came eight to ten years before their time, for it
was only the new amateurs who were willing to try paper negatives and whose desire
for small hand cameras led to a demand for enlarging. Professionals working with
large plate cameras were content with the status quo, and so Mawdsley's emulsion
paper shared the fate of Kennett's gelatine dry plate-both brilliant inventions lacking
popular support.
Probably unaware of Mawdsley's earlier invention, which had not been secured
by a patent, J. w. sw AN patented gelatine bromide paper in July 1879. He also recommended
this development paper for contact printing and enlarging, and stressed its
suitability for mass-production printing. 'To facilitate printing at a uniform and rapid
rate, the sensitive paper may be used in long bands, and by means of automatic
mechanism may be moved on step by step periodically through a space equal to the
width or length of the print, the negative being screened from the light during the
moven1ent.'
By 1880 two makes of gelatine bromide paper were on the market-those of
Mawson & Swan and of W. T. Morgan & Co. (later MORGAN & KIDD) of London,