Lincolns Inn <1>
4 Nov 1857
My dear Sir
Mr Loxley <2> has just brot me the answer of his clients – our proposal <3> is not accepted nor is the door opened to any other: for the determination is come to, that the manufacture shall be discontinued and the concern wound up and the Stock sold – the Patent <4> is to be shelved until the last £100 becomes payable (the £50 to keep it alive is paid) –
Under the circes, it does not answer the purpose of the 3 remaing Proprietors – Mr Carlton <5> Mr Fenton <6> & Mr Pretsch <7> to sell the Patent for any inconsiderable sum for they think that by keeping it they can hereafter turn it to account – and when that time arrives they will come perhaps to You with some offer or proposal to join in it.
Under these circes I suggested that the Company ought to “provide for the costs You have already incurred & the more since You are in no way” prejudiced from pursuing the action for infringemt <8> but to this it is answered they have considerable costs of their own to pay and that there can be no object in prosecuting the action against Defts who have ceased to practice the invention & who are therefore depriving the Ptts of no profits –
The Stock will be sold by auction of which we shall have notice –
Loxley says they have lost nearer £4000 and £3,000 and that but for the action which threw the apple of discord into their ranks, this break up would not have taken place.
“It might have been post hoc but certainly not propter hoc <9>” was my answer for we always expressed our willingness to treat for an accomodation.
L. seemed to admit that each Invention had need of the other & that neither could be separately worked advantageously.
I suggested to Mr L the probability of our soon seeing the Shops filled with plates of piratical infringements of the Engravings – in which case he said his clients would most likely be disposed to join with You in putting these down.
I told L. that You would regret to hear that the Company is thus extinguished for the sake of an act which promised to perpetuate Your first great invention –
It only remains for You to determine whether the action shall be discontinued or not – of the former perhaps it would be as well under the circes that a Judges order shd be obtained upon the terms of each Party paying his own costs –
Ever Yours faithfully
J. H Bolton
Wm H. Fox Talbot Esq.
[envelope:]
Wm. H. Fox Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
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. Of Fry and Loxley, solicitors for the proprietors of 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.
3. See Doc. No: 07459.
4. That of Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor; founder of the Photogalvanographic Company for a process of photographic engraving.
5. 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 Doc. No: 07437.
6. Roger Fenton (1819–1869), photographer & lawyer.
7. Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor; founder of the Photogalvanographic Company. The Patent Photo-Galvanographic Company (commonly, The Photogalvanographic Company) was based on the work of Pretsch. 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.
8. Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor; founder of the Photogalvanographic Company had patented a process for photographic engraving that was broadly similar to that of Talbot [Improvements in the Art of Engraving, Patent No. 565 of 29 October 1852] in that the first part used gelatine and potassium bichromate; Pretsch’s second part, however, used the electrotype process. Talbot considered that his own patent was infringed by Pretsch’s process.
9. After this but certainly not because of this