Hunt, Robert

SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

[br]

b. 6 September 1807 Devonport, Devon, England

d. 19 March 1887 England

[br]

English photographic pioneer and writer.

[br]

A chemist by training, Hunt took an early interest in photography and during the 1840s devised several original photographic processes and techniques. The properties of iron sulphate as a developing agent, widely used by wet-collodion photographers, were first described by Hunt in 1844. He was a prolific author and it was as a writer that he was most influential. In 1841 he published the first substantial English-language photographic manual, a work that was to run to six editions. Perhaps his most important work was his Researches on Light, first published in 1844, with a second edition containing considerable additional material appearing in 1854. In 1851 Hunt was appointed Professor of Mechanical Science at the Royal School of Mines in London. He was a founder member of the London (later Royal) Photographic Society in 1853.

[br]

Principal Honours and Distinctions

Member of the Royal Society 1854.

Further Reading

C.Thomas, 1988, Views and Likenesses, Truro: Royal Institution of Cornwall (a brief account of Hunt's life and work).

H.Gernsheim and A.Gernsheim, 1969, The History of Photography, rev. edn, London.

JW