St Leonards College
St Andrews
October 22d 1842
Dear Sir,
I am now occupied with my Photographic Article <1> which must be in the Printers’ hands by the 8th of Novr. You would oblige me therefore by any hints or communications. I particularly wish your chemical theory of the Calotype & Daguerreotype processes, <2> and I will thank you to tell me which or how many of your Papers I shd list among the works at the head of the Article.
Mr Adamson <3> has arrived at great perfection in the art, and his brother the Doctor <4> is preparing a little book containing his best works <5> which I shall send to you soon.
You will recollect of promising your countenance and support to any person whom I could induce to practise the Calotype as a profession in Scotland. <6> When the specimens reach you, you will be able to judge of Mr Adamson’s merits, and to do what you can to support him. I mean to give him a strong recommendation, and I trust you will do the same.
My Son <7> who has got a fine Camera fm Davidson <8> is now practising the Calotype with great success at Cork with his Regt and I hope to send you soon some of his works. – I have been very busy in the secondary department of taking positives from his Negatives, and have made some essential improvements in the process. The Ammonia is certainly the best fixing material. A copious & continued dose is necessary and gives absolute fixation.
I have produced fine effects by using tinted papers. When the Bromide is used, they soften its harshness, change its colour, and prevent the accession of the blue which supervenes by exposure to light.
My Son has made many successful expts in applying oil to the negatives <9>. – We have all tried this here but not successfully. He however got into the way of doing it; and independent of the quickness wh which it gives a positive in the darkest day, he finds that the grain of the tint is much finer, resembling the finest aquatints. There is great risk however of spoiling the negative, and he has lost several before he succeeded.
Have you seen Channing’s simplification of your Process in the last No of Silliman’s Journal. <10> I tried it carefully, but failed. The result was very imperfect.
I send you 5 specimens the Positives being taken by myself, and the negatives by Dr Adamson & my Son.
I am anxious to have a few more of your works, as I have distributed them very liberally, and my Wife <11> is making up a book of Specimens. <12>
I regret that I cannot send you two of myself<13> which my Son and I took, he being the manipulator; because one of them has been thought by Dr Adamson & Major Playfair <14> the best Portrait done here, but, I will desire him to send you them.
My unfortunate Paper <15> has been requested for the Transactions of the R. Irish Academy where I must in future print my papers. The Edin. Transactions <16> come out too slowly.
I am Dear Sir Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster
Notes:
1. The article was a combined review of four photographic publications, in the Edinburgh Review, v. 76 no.154, January 1843, pp. 309–344, with a supplementary note in April 1843, v. 76 no. 156, p. 563. [See Doc. No: 04541].
2. WHFT had given a preliminary assessment of the Daguerreotype process at the British Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting in 1839. However, the underlying physics and chemistry of photography was still little understood.
3. Robert Adamson (1821–1848). His professional partnership with the painter David Octavius Hill (1802–1870), Scottish painter & photographer, which began in May 1843 because of Hill’s desire to record the momentous Disruption of the Church of Scotland, established – at the dawn of photography – the art of photographic portraiture at the highest level. It was Brewster who introduced the photographer to the painter. See Sara Stevenson, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1981), and The Personal Art of David Octavius Hill (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2002).
4. Dr John Adamson (1809–1870), physician and pioneer of photography. See A. D. Morrison-Low, ‘Dr John Adamson and Robert Adamson: An Early Partnership in Scottish Photography’, The Photographic Collector, v. 2, 1983, pp. 198–214.
5. The so-called ‘Tartan Album’, in the Fox Talbot Collection, the British Library. For a description of this album, see Ralph L. and Joanna L. Harley, ‘The “Tartan Album” by John and Robert Adamson’, History of Photography, v. 12 no. 4, October–December 1988, pp. 295–307. Fundamental flaws in the Harleys’ factual and conceptual analyses were discussed by Sara Stevenson, ‘The Tartan Album’, v. 13 no.3, July–September 1989, pp. 267–268. A reply by Ralph Harley was published as ‘The Tartan Album’, v. 14 no.1, January–March 1990, pp. 97–98.
6. WHFT’s patent did not run in Scotland, so people there were free to set up as professional calotypists.
7. Captain Henry Brewster. See Graham Smith, ‘A Group of Early Scottish Calotypes’, The Princeton University Library Chronicle, v. 46 no.1, Autumn 1984, pp. 81–94.
8. Thomas Davidson (1798–1878), scientific instrument maker and Daguerreotypist. He was the author of The Art of Daguerreotyping, with the Improvements of the Process and Apparatus (Edinburgh, 1841). For biographical details, see John Nicol, ‘Reminiscences of Thomas Davidson, a Weaver Lad’, British Journal of Photography, 15 August 1879, pp. 390–391 and 22 August 1879, pp. 399–401.
9. In order to increase the translucency of the paper.
10. William Francis Channing (1820–1901), an inventor in Boston, was one of the few Americans who worked with WHFT’s process. The article referred to here was actually a comment on Robert Hunt’s processes: ‘Observations on Photographic Processes’, Silliman’s American Journal of Science and Arts, v. 43 no.1, April 1842, pp. 73–76.
11. Juliet, née Macpherson.
12. Probably the album now preserved in the Getty collection. See Graham Smith, Disciples of Light: Photographs in the Brewster Album (Malibu: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1990).
13. Looks like ‘himself’.
14. Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair (1786–1861), military & provost of St Andrew’s University.
15. The one turned down for the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [see Doc. No: 04291]. D. Brewster, ‘On the compensations of polarised light, with the description of a Polarimeter for measuring degrees of polarisation’, Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, v. 19, 1843, pp. 377–392. It had already been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, v. 4, 1841, pp. 306–307.
16. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
17. Spencer Joshua Alwyne Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton (1790–1851), President of the Royal Society of London 1838–1848. [See Doc. No: 04291].
18. Sir George Biddell Airy (1801–1892), Astronomer Royal.
19. Samuel Hunter Christie (1784–1865), mathematician & Secretary of the Royal Society.