James Booker Blakemore Wellington

Who was James Booker Blakemore Wellington?

James Booker Blakemore Wellington aka J. B. B. Wellington was an English photographer who originally trained as architectural draughtsman. In the 1880s, however, an association with George Eastman in New York, drew him into the world of photography. Wellington was regarded as a pictorial photographer of note, while his work was clearly inspired by the paintings of John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough. He was invited to be a member of the Linked Ring Brotherhood in 1892, and was a regular judge on the selection and hanging committee of exhibitions held by the Photographic Society of Great Britain. He was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Photographic Society.

Back in England he became a manager of Kodak's factory in Wealdstone and was responsible for a number of practical formulas for improving emulsions and developers, one being a negative intensifier containing silver nitrate, ammonium thiocyanate and sodium thiosulphate, and another being dry-collodion plates with improved sensitivity. Around 1895 he and his brother-in-law H. H. Ward set up a photographic paper manuafcturing company, Wellington & Ward. The firm later extended into plates and film manufacture.