Herbert Bowyer Berkeley

Herbert Bowyer Berkeley (27 March 1851 in Cotheridge Court, Cotheridge[1], Worcestershire, England – 26 May 1890 in Algiers, Algeria) was an English photographer as well as a chemical engineer. He was the fourth son of The Reverend William Comyns Berkeley and Harriet Elizabeth Bowyer Nichols Berkeley. Berkeley was educated at Uppingham School[2], was a member of the Royal Photographic Society and exhibited work from 1874 until 1889.

During his years at Uppingham he was introduced to chemistry by his science teacher, a German PhD. After Uppingham he lived at Cotheridge Court. During the 1870s he became an amateur photographer as well as a chemical engineer, and experimented with the developing processes and photographic materials available to him during that time. Many of his early photographs were scenes taken around the extensive woods and pastures in the vicinity of his family home. By early 1881 he had left Cotheridge and was living in lodgings in London.

During the 1870s photographers used the common wet-plate, which required a lot of on-the-spot preparation for immediate exposure. Although not a new idea, photography was still in its early stages of experimentation. Berkeley experimented with the pre-coated, semi-dry collodion plates which were commercially available at that time. He discovered that with the addition of sulfite to Samman's developing solution, in order to absorb the sulphur dioxide, which was given off by the chemical dithionite, that dithionite was no longer required in the developing process. Berkeley published his discovery in 1881.

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