John Benjamin Dancer

Who was John Benjamin Dancer?

John Benjamin Dancer was a scientific instrument maker and inventor of microphotography. He also pioneered stereography. By 1835, he controlled his father's instrument making business. He was responsible for various inventions, but did not patent many of his ideas. In 1856, he invented the stereoscopic camera. He died at the age of 75 and was buried at Brooklands Cemetery, Sale, Greater Manchester.

Dancer improved the Daniell cell by introducing the porous pot cell, which he invented in 1838. He was a leading inventor and practitioner in the emerging field of microphotography, work he began shortly after the Daguerreotype process was first announced in 1839. His novel uses of microphotography, such as "the reduction of the 680 word tablet erected in memory of the electrician William Sturgeon to a positive one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter", attracted much public attention. Dancer was remembered as a person very willing to share his expertise with others.