Lincolns Inn <1>
18 Nov 1857
My dear Sir
No Judges order <2> has been obtained and after much consideration I have come to the conclusion that it is better to leave the cause <3> in abeyance with an understanding that if our opponents really relinquish the use & manufacture of the Plates under Mr Pretsch’s Patent <4> and while they so relinquish it, no step is to be taken –
I have written to Messrs Fry & Loxley <5> to say so and if they assent – which I consider they will be very glad to do – we are precisely in the same position as if such an order were drawn up, save that we shall not be prejudiced –
Whereas the proposed order might prejudice us – in case for instance of the Plates being sold to Purchasers & Publishers who should proceed to multiply and sell copies & whose proceedings it might become expedient if not necessary to stop – for it would then be objected to as that by abandoning the action we had permitted & sanctioned the Sale with all its consequences.
Since therefore we can in case of need resume the action at the stage we are now in – it is better to do without an order, the terms of which it would be very difficult to adjust so as to prevent mischief in future.
Believe me to remain
My dear Sir
Ever Your’s faithfully
J. H Bolton
I consider that this communication of mine to Fry & Loxley which was only made Yesterday virtually puts an end to the matter Wm H. Fox Talbot EsqNotes:
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. See Doc. No: 07480.
3. Talbot had been pursuing the Patent Photogalvanographic Company for infringement of his patent Improvements in the Art of Engraving, Patent No. 565 of 29 October 1852.
4. 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 in that the first part used gelatine and potassium bichromate; Pretsch’s second part, however, used the electrotype process. 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.
5. Solicitors for the Patent Photogalvanographic Company. The other partner, Peter Wickens Fry, had been a prominent opponent of Talbot’s photographic patents.