Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Bt

Image credit: National Portrait Gallery, London

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Cameron first met Herschel in South Africa in 1836 where she went to recover from illness and they became close, long-standing friends. An astronomer and physicist, Herschel was also a pioneer in the chemistry of photography. Among his many groundbreaking discoveries, he introduced ‘hypo’ as a fixing agent and coined the terms 'photograph', 'negative' and 'positive'. Herschel introduced Cameron to the new invention of photography in 1839 and shared the results of his early experiments with her. In her autobiographical manuscript 'Annals of My Glass House' (1874, first published 1889), Cameron remarked: 'He was to me as a Teacher and High Priest. From my girlhood I had loved and honoured him, and it was after a friendship of 31 years’ duration that the high task of giving his portrait to the nation was allotted to me'.

National Portrait Gallery, London

London

Title

Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Bt

Date

1867

Medium

albumen print

Measurements

H 34 x W 26.4 cm

Accession number

P213

Acquisition method

purchased, 1982

Work type

Photograph

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