Lincolns Inn <1>
30th Oct 1854
My dear Sir,
Your letter of yesterday <2> & the 14 Vol of the Philos Transactions <3> are come to hand but as one thing leads on to another I should like to have the Vol for 1840 in which Sir John Herschel’s paper <4> said to have been read on the 20th Feby of that year is set out.
In the abstract of the proceedings of the R.S. <5> which I have procured Vol IV which comprises 1840, I find a paper read by him on the 5 March but none on the 20th Feby –
I want also “ Robert Hunt’s Manual of Photogy <6><”> 4 Edition which sets out Niepce’s <7> process of developing invisible images – because it is specially refd to in Hendersons <8> 9th answer to our [illegible word]. If you do not happen to have it, I will get it at the Booksellers.
Sir Fredk Thesiger <9> is not arrived but is expected tomorrow – his private residence is 11 Bryanston Square.
Grove <10> is in Town.
Ever Your’s faithfully
J. H. Bolton
Wm H. Fox Talbot Esqr
Notes:
1. One of the four Inns of Court, the ‘colleges’ of barristers at the English Bar. Bolton had his chambers [lawyer’s offices and, at the time, often living-quarters also] there.
2. Not traced, but see Doc. No: 07049 for Bolton’ request.
3. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
4. Herschel, ‘On the Chemical Action of the Rays of the Solar Spectrum on Preparations of Silver and Other Substances, Both Metallic and Non-metallic, and on Some Photographic Process’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1840, pp. 1–59.
5. Royal Society of London.
6. Robert Hunt (1807–1887), scientist & photographic historian, A Manual of Photography (London: John Joseph Griffin, 1853).
7. Joseph Nicéphore Nièpce (1765–1833), photographic inventor; he did not, however, develop the latent image.
8. James Henderson, photographer, London.
9. Sir Frederick Thesiger (1794–1878), later 1st Baron Chelmsford, Lord Chancellor [1858]. He was Leading Counsel for Talbot in the patents lawsuit, Talbot v. Laroche, of 18 to 20 December 1854, but his lack of scientific expertise was a disadvantage to Talbot’s case.
10. Sir William Robert Grove (1811–1896), scientist.