Lincolns Inn <1>
17th Aug 1857
My dear Sir
Our letters crossed <2> expressing similar comments on the aspect of the Company <3> – in fact, it looks as if Mr Pretsch <4> wished to step the millstone from Mr Fenton’s <5> neck upon Your’s which would certainly improve the Company’s position –
I send You on the or Side Fry & Loxley’s <6> note declining to furnish a copy of Mr Hindmarsh’s opinion <7> – I have written in answer to say that our opinion does not coincide at all with their’s in the liberality of the counterproposals – but since in their letter of the 11th <8> they based their counterproposals upon Mr H’s opinion, how can You form an opinion judgment of its value, unless You are furnished with a copy?
We shall see if this will provoke a compliance
Ever Your’s faithfully
J. H Bolton
[enclosure: copy (in another hand) of Fry & Loxley to J H Bolton:]
Copy
80, Cheapside, London
E.C.
August 15th 1857
Dear Sirs,
Talbot v Walker
We have given your favor of the 12th inst our best consideration but we think it would not be desirable to furnish a copy of Mr Hindmarsh’s opinion. We must ask you to be so good as to consider our replies with the aid of your own judgment, and as our concessions are so liberal they should not, we think – fail to be viewed as satisfactory. –
Our Clients have not taken out any Patent subsequent to that of Mr Pretsch. –
Dr Sirs,
Yours faithfully
Fry & Loxley
Messrs Price Bolton & Filder
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, living-quarters also] there.
2. WHFT’s letter not traced.
3. The Patent Photo-Galvanographic Company (commonly, The Photogalvanographic Company) was based on the work of Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor and former Manager of the Imperial Printing Establishment in Vienna. Located in Holloway Road, Islington, London, from 1856-1857, Pretsch took over as manager and Roger Fenton (1819–1869), photographer & lawyer, was a partner and their chief photographer. Starting in late 1856, they published a serial portfolio, Photographic Art Treasures, or Nature and Art Illustrated by Art and Nature, illustratated with photogalvanographs derived from several photographer's works. Photogalvanography was uncomfortably closely based on elements of WHFT’s patented 1852 Photographic Engraving but, unlike Talbot, the plates were heavily retouched by hand. Compounding the legal objections of Talbot, their former manager, Duncan Campbell Dallas, set up a competing company to produce the Dallastype. The company collapsed and near the end of 1860 Pretsch, out of money, allowed his patent to lapse. A public appeal was launched in 1861 to assist him but he returned to Vienna in 1863 in ill health, going back to the Imperial Printing Establishment, but finally succumbing to cholera. See Doc. No: 07807.
4. Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor; founder of the Photogalvanographic Company.
5. Roger Fenton (1819–1869), photographer & lawyer.
6. Solicitors for the Patent Photogalvanographic Company.
7. Despite repeated requests, Fry and Loxley were refusing to hand over the barrister’s opinion [see Doc. No: 07431].
8. Originally enclosed with Doc. No: 07436 but not traced.