Haymarket
May 31st 1862
Sir
You and I had a long correspondance <1> which unfortunately occupied much time without leading to any profitable result but its importance has never been lost sight of by me – It is within your knowledge that the Ordinance office have for some months past been working a Photographic process in connection with Lithography <2> I have seen and studied its operation in its various phases and as the Government are about to throw away all business except their own it is my intention to avail myself of the opportunity and to enter into the speculation feeling assured the process is not fully developed – No one is cognisant at present of my thoughts and I write to you without having any plan to propose but I am not blind to what has been already done and if it were possible to combine the application with the minds that conceived them greater results might be expected
I can carry on that portion to which I have attended by my own Agency and probably shall do so but if you see the matter in the light I do perhaps you may consider it worthy your attention and if so I shall be glad to have your views of the subject otherwise I have to apologize for intruding upon you
I have the honor to be Sir Your obedient Servant
J. Hogarth
The Honble Fox Talbot
&c
[envelope:]
[blind embossed on rear flap:] H
Mr Honbl Fox Talbot
&c
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Millburn Tower
Gogar
Edinburgh
Notes:
1. Relating to the granting of a patent-licence by WHFT to a company to be set up by Hogarth, Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor; founder of the Photogalvanographic Company and others to work a photographic-engraving process devised by Pretsch but of which the first part was apparently based on Part 1 of WHFT’s process [see Doc. No: 07253] which he patented: WHFT, Improvements in Photographic Engraving, No. 565, November 1852.
2. In 1858 the Ordnance Survey had experimented with photozincography for the reproduction of maps; see Doc. No: 08099 for reference to the possibility of using lithographic stone rather than zinc.