TY - JOUR TI - Photography and electroplate in 1840s Birmingham AU -Jo Gane PY - 2023 VL - IS - Autumn 2023 KW - Birmingham KW - collections KW - daguerrotype KW - Electroplate KW - Magneto KW - Manufacturing KW - objects KW - Percy KW - Practice-based research KW - Recreative practices KW - Shaw KW - Woolrich AB - Industrial improvements to silver plating through the work of electroplating firms such as Elkington, Mason and Co are an important part of our industrial heritage, bridging art, science and industry to form a significant portion of museum collections. However, the impact of this development of silverplating technology upon photography has not previously been explored. This article details the improvements that electroplated silver brought to the daguerreotype photographic process and to the manufacture of daguerreotype plates in Birmingham, offering a material reappraisal of the inventive qualities of the daguerreotype within a wider narrative of industrial manufacture. Chemists in 1840s Birmingham were developing photographic techniques and silverplating processes at the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, later Queens College on Paradise Street. These scientists – George Shaw (1818–1904) and John Percy (1817–1889) – had detailed, tactile knowledge of the convergent chemistry and processes in both arenas. Developments in the industrial manufacture of silverplate in 1840s Birmingham created significant improvements to the materials used in the daguerreotype photographic process, making photography more viable as a commercial venture. Shaw planned an early portrait studio and worked with early innovators in electroplating techniques the Marrian brothers (Francis (1802–1893) and Benjamin James Pratt Marrian (1811–1891)) using magneto-plate technology developed by another Birmingham industrial entrepreneur John Woolrich (c. 1791–1843). This potential studio did not emerge due to restrictive patenting and licensing restrictions around the practice of daguerreotype photography, yet extant daguerreotypes tell a story of improvements stemming from technical innovation. These daguerreotypes situate industrial Birmingham as a place of innovation and invention and place the daguerreotype photographic process within narratives of industrial improvements and radically inventive manufacturing practices. Key to the analysis presented here is the role of the recreation of historic techniques in historical research and the value of acquiring tactile knowledge of the behaviour of materials during the processes explored. Here practical experiments allowed the author to look beyond the surviving daguerreotypes via material knowledge to the circumstances and social environment of production. This approach revealed new knowledge which offers an alternative reading of the history of objects through their materials. N1 - The John Percy collection of letters at Science Museum Group MS/2124, ‘Light’ notebook MS/0716, Daguerreotype by Mayall in National Media Museum Collection 1934-649 and Cadbury Research Library MS768 N1 - Talbot Correspondence, document number 4772, 20 March 1843. Benjamin James Pratt Marrian to William Henry Fox Talbot. Accessed online 3 October 2022 at https://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/ N1 - See James, P and Gane, J, ‘A White House on Paradise Street’ exhibition. Birmingham Open Media 2016 and James, P, 2018 ‘George Shaw: Birmingham’s first photographer’, History of Photography journal, issue 181 autumn 2018, pp 33–36 N1 - Information from the exhibition ‘A White House on Paradise Street’, Birmingham Open Media 2017. For further detail on the early demonstrations of photography in Birmingham see Wood, R D and James, P, 2013, ‘The Enigma of Monsieur de Sainte-Croix’ in History of Photography journal. N1 - ‘Light’ notebook MS 0716, no pagination. N1 - Charles Clifford, listed as a ’General Roller of Metals’ in Grace’s Guide from 1839–1864 and operator of Rolling Mills on Fazeley St, Birmingham. Also a dealer in metals and agent to Bolitho and Sons Tin Smelters, Cornwall. N1 - Light’ notebook MS 0716, no pagination N1 - John Woolrich Snr, described as a ‘lecturer to the Medical School in Birmingham’ delivered 12 lectures in Chemistry at the Mechanics Institute in 1835 – see The Analyst, Vol 2 Issue 10 May 1835 p 250. The Birmingham Journal, January 16, 1841 p 5 lists 6 lectures on electrical forces by Dr Melson, one on water and one on the atmosphere by G Shaw and two lectures on the history of music by Mr J P Marrian. N1 - John Wright (1808–1844) used potassium cyanide salts as an electrolytic agent in 1840. According to Alistair Grant’s (2014) thesis on the history of electroplating at the Birmingham firm of Elkington, Mason and Co, Wright’s invention was quickly purchased and incorporated into Elkington’s patent electroplate process, patent number 8447 in 1840 (2014, p 50). Wright’s discovery is documented within the John Percy’s ‘Metallurgy Silver and Gold – Part 1’ (1880, pp 115–116) where he mistakes Wright’s first name for Alexander. This mistake and reference is discussed in Alistair Grant’s thesis on Elkington (2014, p 51). In George Shaw’s 1844 Manual of Electro-Metallurgy the discovery of ‘a class of salts from which gold and silver may be precipitated with much greater success’(1844, p 15) is documented as being Mr Elkington’s reflecting the patent holder of this invention. N1 - Litigation documents held in the national archives. Ref. C13 / 1573 / 7 W1839 E15 Elkington vs Phippson (Bill only, no answer). Mr John Haseley must be the same J Haseley of 33 Constitution Hill who writes to Talbot to inform him of Woolrich’s licensing of work under his patent in 1842. Document number 2326 of 17 September 1842 available at https://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/ N1 - Elkington communicated with several silver platers in Sheffield and was met with resistance to their processes from traditional close-platers, such as the Sheffield firm of Creswick. However, the technology eventually became mainstream. For further detail, see Grant, 2014. Their electroplate process was licensed and used by manufactures such in Paris, following a court ruling in France in 1844 reported upon in the Mechanics Magazine and Register, Volume 40, 1844, pp 95–96. See ‘Electro-Metallurgy in France – Messrs. Elkington and Co.’s Patents.’ N1 - See The Artizan (1843) ‘Art VI. – Electro-Metallurgy’, Volume 1, pp 132–134 and The Illustrated Weekly Times, London ‘Arts and Sciences’, Saturday 15 April 1843, p 94 N1 - Litigation documents held in the national archives. Ref. C13 / 1573 / 7 W1839 E15 Elkington vs Phippson (Bill only, no answer) N1 - An advertisement in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, Monday July 21 1845 states that Woolrich has retained the patent in Birmingham. For further details of Woolrich’s licences in Sheffield see Leader (1913, p 26). Licences granted by Brooke Evans to Thomas Prime, machine maker, Wm Carr Hutton and Wm Briggs of Sheffield until Elkington purchase the patent and existing licences. N1 - See Shaw’s Manual of Electrometallurgy 1844 Vol 2 pp 14–15, claims that Shaw saw ‘the most conclusive evidence, both documentary and personal, that the late Mr Woolrich, of Birmingham, succeeded in applying coatings of copper to various articles by means of the voltaic battery […] before the published experiments of Mr Jordan and Mr Spencer appeared. N1 - National Archives collection ref C14/305/T14 1842 Tyndall vs Woolrich Bill and Answer and 1843 Woolrich vs Tyndall Bill and Answer c/14/178/W163. Alongside 1839 Elkington vs Woolrich and Phippson C13/1573/7 W 1839 E15 N1 - See Letter numbers 2144, 1629 and 1715 in The correspondence of Michael Faraday by Frank A J L James, Volume 3 1841–1848 N1 - Birmingham Daily Mail, Monday August 15 1904, ‘Death of Mr George Shaw. A remarkable career’ N1 - See LXVI, ‘On Sonorous Phaenomena’, in Electro-Magnets by J P Marrian, pp 382–384 in The Philosophical Magazine and Journal, 1844 N1 - For more on this see Graham W Garrett ‘Canada’s first Daguerrean image’, in History of Photography Vol 20 Issue 2, pp 101–103 N1 - See ‘Electro-Metallurgy in France – Messrs. Elkington and Co.’s Patents.’ Mechanics Magazine, Volume 40, pp 95–96 N1 - Hunt, R, 1854, ‘Chapter IX, Electricity’, in The Poetry of Science Third Edition (London: Henry Bohn) N1 - Talbot Correspondence, document number 4772, 20 March 1843. Benjamin James Pratt Marrian to William Henry Fox Talbot (accessed online 3 October 2022 at https://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/) N1 - See documents Elkington vs Phippson, C 13/1573/7 National archives, Kew and DMU archive of Talbot’s correspondence – letter by Haseley, J, metalworker of Birmingham. N1 - The Artizan, 1843, ‘Art VI. – Electro-Metallurgy’, in Volume 1, pp 132–134 N1 - Joseph Whitlock early photographer and Beard licensee for the daguerreotype process based on New Street, Birmingham. He evidently was successful due to his long career in which he established several portrait studios in Birmingham, Leamington and Wolverhampton, continued by his sons, Henry Joseph and Frederick. However, Marrian thought his plates were better – perhaps due to their grasp of the material qualities of the silverplate and ability to manufacture this – or in an attempt to win the confidence of Talbot. N1 - Talbot Correspondence, document number 4772, 20 March 1843. Benjamin James Pratt Marrian to William Henry Fox Talbot (accessed online 3 October 2022 at https://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/) N1 - For more detail on Claudet’s license for the daguerreotype see ‘The Daguerreotype Patent, The British Government, and The Royal Society’ by R Derek Wood in History of Photography Vol 4, No 1 January 1980, pp 53–9 N1 - See ‘Electro-Metallurgy in France – Messrs. Elkington and Co.’s Patents’, Mechanics Magazine, Volume 40, pp 95–96 N1 - P7, Item no 6, ‘Series of Daguerreotype Portraits contributed by A. Claudet, 18, King William Street, Strand, London’, Catalogue of the articles in the Exhibition of Manufactures and Art, in connection with the meeting of the British Association, Birmingham 1849, 96pp. British Association for the Advancement of Science, Birmingham Meeting 1849. Birmingham Central Library collection ref : AX Pamphlets Vol 16/9 N1 - The Art Journal, Volume X1, 1849, p 336 N1 - 1849, Birmingham Journal N1 - Schaaf, L, 2020, Colin Ford lecture. Bodleian library, Oxford 2020 PB - The Science Museum Group SN - 2054-5770 LA - eng DO - 10.15180/232014 UR - https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/photography-and-electroplate-in-1840s-birmingham/ T2 - Science Museum Group Journal