[draft:]
Bolton May 11/60
In reply to Mr Pretsch – I was not aware that or parties were usg my patentd process of a mixture of gel & bichr pot – I will cause enquiry to be made, & if act as I may be advised in the matter, as I consider the it my duty to put down all infringemt of this valble patt.
Of course I cannot accede to Mr P’s request that I wd give him a licce or permission to use my invn without considern
His A plain course is open to him, let him convince some capitalist of the excellce of his inventn & who has the means & will to bring out on a large scale, then let the capitalist apply to me for a licse & I shd be willing to agree to it on reasonable terms.
[expanded version:]
Bolton May 11 1860
In reply to Mr Pretsch <1> – I was not aware that other parties were using my patented process <2> of a mixture of gelatine & bichromate of potassium – I will cause enquiry to be made, & if act as I may be advised in the matter, as I consider the it my duty to put down all infringement of this valuable patent.
Of course I cannot accede to Mr Pretsch’s request that I would give him a licence or permission to use my invention without consideration
His A plain course is open to him, let him convince some capitalist of the excellence of his invention <3> & who has the means & will to bring out on a large scale, then let the capitalist apply to me for a license & I should be willing to agree to it on reasonable terms.
Notes:
1. The Patent Photo-Galvanographic Company (commonly, The Photogalvanographic Company) was based on the work of Paul Pretsch (1808¨C1873), 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¨C1869), 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.
2. Talbot had patented a method of photographic engraving: Improvements in the Art of Engraving, Patent No. 565 of 29 October 1852. In 1857 he had been in dispute with the Patent Photogalvanographic Company as he considered that it infringed his patent.
3. Pretsch had already taken on James Carlton, a muslin manufacturer, whose partner, George Walker, also invested in Photogalvanogray. Bolton was to have reservations about Carlton, but 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.