| Abstract: | Abstract The Fox Talbot Collection at the Science Museum, London, includes cameras and apparatus; approximately 6000 of the world's earliest photographs; plates, proofs, and glass positives relating to the photo glyphic engraving process; and an important selection of notes, letters, and documents. To deal adequately with a collection so extensive and significant is beyond the scope of this article, which must confine itself to an outline of how the collection was acquired, a consideration of the more important apparatus and its historical associations, and a discussion of the photographic images. The important documentary material can only be mentioned incidentally, and photo glyphic engravings cannot be dealt with at all. The title Fox Talbot Collection should be applied only to the material donated to the Science Museum by the Talbot family but since the end of the 19th century the museum has enjoyed continuous support from the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, which has generously lent material to the museum's photographic collection. This includes Talbot apparatus which is so intimately connected with the Fox Talbot collection that it seems unnecessarily pedantic to consider it separately. |
