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Document number: 7252
Date: 25 Apr 1856
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: FOSTER Peter Le Neve
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA56-019
Last updated: 11th December 2009

Society of Arts,
Manufactures, & Commerce,
Adelphi, London.
25 April 1856

Dear Sir,

I know of no other address of Mr Dallas <1> than
“Photogalvanographic Compy
“Holloway Place”
“Holloway Road”
“London”.

I presume he is to be found there.–

I am very sorry that you were not able to attend the meeting <2> here last Wednesday. Specimens of your process on steel were shewn.

If you would kindly furnish the Society with a few specimens to exhibit at our Mechanics Institutes in the Country with Herr Pretschs & Claudets specimens <3> the Council would I am sure feel grateful.

I am Dear Sir yours very truly
P Le Neve Foster
Secy

H. Fox Talbot Esq
Greta Bank
Keswick

Notes:

1. 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.

2. Foster was the secretary of the Society of Arts from 1853 until his death. At this time he was also secretary to the Photographic Society of London.

3. Specimens made by Pretsch and Antoine Françoise Jean Claudet (1797–1867), London; French-born scientist, merchant & photographer, resident in London.

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