Kensall Green <1>
3 October 1853
Sir
There has been a mistake in sending you Thomas Colodion <2> Iodized for it will not keep good above three or four days in summer, but you ought to have had it seperately & Iodise it your self in small quantities as you require it, and then I have no doubt but you will find it Supirior to anything you have tried, the reason they send it iodized is that Thomas does not sell less than one [illegible] (16 oz) seperately there are directions on the bottles how to mix it he has published in the Photographic journal his method of making the sensitive bath, cleaning the glass plate, developing solution, etc, etc, if you like I will send you some of his separate colodion in any quantity you like as wee sell it, as I told you before it was a blunder of Davies <3>, I will like wise send you the journal in question or our own method (wich is more simpel and I can see no difference in the result) of course the Colodion you have of Thomas cannot be good for any thing by this time.
Your Obidient Servant
N. Henneman
Notes:
1. Monument House, Kensall Green, outside London. The earliest advertisement for this traced thus far was published in the 1 March 1853 issue of The Journal of The Photographic Society, v. 2 no. 1: "Talbotype - Photography - Messrs. Henneman and Co. Photographers to the Queen, 122 Regent Street, beg to inform their patrons and the public, that the have, in order to make their Establishment more complete, erected in the suburbs a manufactory on a large scale for Photographic printing and the preparation of the various papers now used tin Photography; and that they are now in a position to execute Contracts to any extent."
2. Richard Wheeler Thomas, chemist, 10 Pall Mall, London, who compounded collodion for the new wet plate negative process.
3. Edmund Louis Davis, President, Horticultural Society of London. [See Doc. No: 06689].