Leon Warnerke

Who is Leon Warnerke?

Leon Warnerke was a Polish engineer and inventor in the field of photography, independence activist and revolutionary. Leon Warnerke was a pseudonym; his real name was Władysław Małachowski.

Władysław Małachowski was born on 26 May 1837 to a Polish-Lithuanian szlachta family in manor Macie, Grodno Governorate, Lithuania, Russian Empire. He graduated from the Corps of Railroad Engineers in 1859. In 1863 he joined the January Uprising, and then entered the National Government in Vilnius. After the uprising chased by police, fled with his wife on board the English ship to the UK. He settled in London, under the name Leon Warnerke. He died 7 October 1900 in Geneva, Switzerland.

He made many inventions in the field of photography. Małachowski, first developed in 1875 the camera system, which acted like modern cameras. His system was based on the photosensitive layer of dry collodion imposed on the paper covered with a layer of gum arabic. After exposure, the layer of collodion was through a complex process, transferred to a glass substrate. This material is also suitable for printing positive.