Sir J. Herschel
Athenæum <1>
May 26 1854
Dr Sir
Altho’ I believe my Solicitor informed you of the successful issue of our application to the Vice Chancellor, yet I think you would like to hear of some curious circumstances which occurred with respect to the affidavit with which you so kindly favoured me. <2>
When this was read, it was seen that it distinctly negatived the assertion of Mr R. Hunt, or rather the inference which he drew from your expts published in the Phil. Transns for 1840. <3> The opposing Counsel could not get over this, so what did he do? He took up a volume in his hand and said, I shall be able to show your Honour (the Vice Chancellor) that this discrepancy is more apparent than real, there is an important passage in this volume which will enable me to offer a satisfactory explanation of it; –
And then, after greatly exciting our curiosity about this important passage, he added a few rather vague and unmeaning sentences, and then suddenly diverged to another topic, and never opened the volume at all!
The judgement of the Vice Chancellor was exceedingly clear calm & luminous, befitting the judicial bench –
I remain Dr Sir
yours very truly H. F. Talbot
Notes:
1. Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, London: WHFT’s club; a gentleman’s club composed primarily of artists and scientists.
2. On injunction against James Henderson, photographer, London, whom WHFT accused of infringing his calotype patent by using the collodion method in his business, on this day in 1854.
3. Robert Hunt (1807–1887), scientist & photographic historian, swore an affidavit, on 22 May 1854, for the defense in the case of Talbot v. Henderson, espousing some conclusions he had reached after reading, John Frederick William Herschel, ‘On the Chemical Action of the Rays of the Solar Spectrum on Preparations of Silver and Other Substances, Both Metallic and Non-metallic, and on Some Photographic Processes,’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1840, pp.1–59. Herschel’s affidavit and the one made by Sir David Brewster (1781–1868), Scottish scientist & journalist, have been reprinted in Notes and Queries, 8 July 1854, pp.35–36.