Talbot, William Henry Fox (1800-1877)

Like Brewster, Talbot was not a member of the Club. However three of his calotypes are in volume 2, including one of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, where he carried out most of his photographic experiments during the late 1830s. Born in Dorsetshire, Talbot was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. For his attainments in mathematics he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1831. He was a Liberal M.P. in the first Reform Parliament, but his interests lay largely outside the political sphere. Although best known today for his pioneering work in photography, he was also known as a philosopher, classicist, Egyptologist and a transcriber and translator of Syrian and Chaldean cuneiform texts.