Lincoln’s Inn <1>
13th Aug 1857
My dear Sir,
I am in receipt of Your’s of Yesterday <2> with Mr Pretsch’s <3> letter – by last post I forwarded to You at Lacock Mr Loxley’s <4> written proposals in answer to our’s.
Mr Loxley stated in conversation that “he believed he might now say with almost certainty that the Patent was now vested, in entirety, in 3 persons<”> – one of whom was a capitalist at Manchester & a lover of the art (i e for commercial purposes) but no names were mentioned not even Mr Pretsch’s as one of the 3 – but by “almost certainty” I understood him to refer to the position of matters with Dallas <5> with whom the disputes were altho’ arranged by agreement were not actually compleated.
I wrote yesterday to Loxley for a copy of Mr Hindmarsh’s opinion <6> and a 2nd time to enquire whether any furr Patent has been taken out by the same Parties – if he does not answer – we can without much difficulty ascertain by searching at the Patent office.
As the Limited Liability is applicable only to Social Stock Companies having more than 25 members at its formation or by subsequent admission when the capital is divided into shares – such limited liability cannot be made applicable, we may assume, in its present constitution at least: so that it is & must remain a private partnership subject to the Bankrupt Law like any other trading.
Mr Loxley no doubt threw out the intimation I mentioned in my first letter, <7> as a feeler, for the same object as Mr Pretsch’s, but seeing that I did not encourage him in the [illegible deletion] idea of a partnership, he did not enter into details.
In the present posture <8> of the business – I want to be furnished with what Mr Hindmarsh has written, for Your consideration, before You make up Your mind on the counter-proposals.
Ever Yours faithfully
J. H Bolton
P. S.
Since writing the preceding Mr P. Pretsch has called to explain his proposal which is that You should join the Company <9> now consisting of Mr Carlton <10> Mr Fenton <11> & himself by taking Mr Fenton’s share who is willing to retire (for a consideration)
Mr P said the Company has taken out another Patent for the application of the Invention to Calico printing but it has been “almost lost” – also one in Paris –
He could give no information (or would not) as to the statistics of the Company – in fact his intervention has not tended to raise the reputation of the partnership but rather to make one doubt whether any benefit will [come?] to You frm a successful litigation with a such a “rope of sand” as they seem to be –
Wm H. Fox Talbot Esqre
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. Letter not located.
3. Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor; founder of the Photogalvanographic Company.
4. Of Fry and Loxley, solicitors for the Patent Photogalvanographic Company with whom Talbot was in dispute regarding his patent for photographic engraving. See Doc. No: 07807. The other partner, Peter Wickens Fry, had been a prominent opponent of Talbot’s photographic patents. For the proposals put forward on Talbot’s side, see Doc. No: 07401, and for the delay in response, see Doc. No: 07431.
5. Duncan Campbell Dallas. See Doc. No: 07399.
6. See Doc. No: 07431.
7. Doc. No: 07431, which mentions the idea of Talbot entering into partnership with Pretsch or the Patent Photogalvanographic Company.
8. or possibly ‘position’.
9. 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.
10. See Doc. No: 07465; he is the ‘capitalist at Manchester’ mentioned in the second paragraph. James Carlton, a muslin manufacturer who took on George Walker as a partner. In addition to his commercial success (or perhaps as a foundation of it) "there has perhaps not been a Manchester merchant whose character for honour and integrity stood higher than James Carlton's": Josiah Thomas Slugg, Reminiscences of Manchster Fifty Years Ago (Manchester: A. E. Cornish, 1881), p. 27. See also Doc. No: 07437.
11. Roger Fenton (1819–1869), photographer & lawyer.