[draft:]
Crookes –
25 Nov/ 58
I hve alws considd PP’s pss method an infgt of my patt of /52 since he employs my method of making the 1st ½ of my pss. He makes a chr. gel. pict. & then removes by wat dissolves in water the parts on wch the light has not acted.
He afterwards When the pict. is finished & dried, he electrotypes it –
You are perhaps aware that 2 years ago, acting under legal advice, I wrote commenced an action agst the P.G.Gc Compy in order to put an end to this infgt – but being informed by the solrs that the Compy had expended all their capital in unsuccessful expts and did not intend to pursue the attempt any further I readily consentd to leave the action in suspense. And so it now remains – Under these circes y. will see that it is imposs. for me to be a consentg party to the publicn of Mr P’s specns in the News unless as matters stand a present<.> But not wishing to deprive the world of anything that interests science I am quite willing, provided Mr Pretsch first writes to me (either directly or through you) requesting my license to publish in the News a certn No of phlithogc plates (say five or six of them) with a view to the improvements of Science, I say I am quite willing to give a gratuitous permissn to do so. I hope you received 7 new specns I sent yest?
Can all engravgs however made, be transferred to stone & printed with as by th lithogrc process?
[expanded version:]
Crookes25 November 1858
I have always considered Paul Pretsch’s process method <1> an infringement of my patent of 1852 <2> since he employs my method of making the 1st half of my process. He makes a chrome gelatine picture and then removes by wat dissolves in water the parts on which the light has not acted.
He afterward When the picture is finished and dried, he electrotypes it –
You are perhaps aware that 2 years ago, acting under legal advice, I wrote commenced an action against the Photogalvanographic Company <3> in order to put an end to this infringement – but being informed by the solicitors that the Company had expended all their capital in unsuccessful experiments and did not intend to pursue the attempt any further I readily consented to leave the action in suspense. And so it now remains. Under these circumstances you will see that it is impossible for me to be a consenting party to the publication of Mr Pretsch’s specimens in the News <4> unless as matters stand a present. But not wishing to deprive the world of anything that interests science I am quite willing, provided Mr Pretsch first writes to me (either directly or through you) requesting my license to publish in the News a certain number of photolithographic plates (say five or six of them) with a view to the improvements of Science, I say I am quite willing to give a gratuitous permission to do so. I hope you received 7 new specimens I sent yesterday?
Can all engravings however made, be transferred to stone and printed with by the lithographic process?
Notes:
1. Paul Pretsch (1808–1873), Austrian photographer & inventor; founder of the Photogalvanographic Company, took a patent for ‘Application of Certain Designs Obtained on metallic Surfaces by Photographic and other Agency’, on 11 August 1855, Patent no.1824.
2. Patent number 585, 29 October 1852, for ‘Improvements in Engraving’, was a patent for photographic engraving.
3. 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.
4. The Photographic News.