Dr. S. E. Sheppard

Abstract

DR. S. E. SHEPPABD, well known throughout the photographic industry, retired on January 1, 1948, after thirty-five years with the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories, Rochester, U.S.A. Dr. Sheppard graduated at University College, London, where he later obtained the degree of doctor of science, submitting a thesis on the formation of the latent photographic image and the chemistry of development. The work was done jointly with Dr. C. E. K. Mees, now a vice-president of the Eastman Kodak Company, and was published as "Investigations on the Theory of the Photographic Process", so well known by photographic research workers. In 1913 the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories were newly organised and Dr. Sheppard went to the United States to join the staff as a chemist, and since then he has made valuable contributions in many fields of photographic research. Perhaps his best-known work relates to the function of gelatin in photographic emulsions. He and his co-workers found that the sensitizing action of gelatin is influenced by the presence of certain sulphur compounds, among the most important of which are derivatives of mustard oil. This work has led to the comment among those familiar with photography that if the cow had not a taste for mustard we should have no fast photographic emulsions. Dr. Sheppard made a special study of colloid chemistry which, apart from its obvious influence on his work on gelatin, led to such unrelated work as the development of a colloidal fuel for use in submarines during the First World War and investigations into the properties of cellulose and rubber. He has published some two hundred and fifty scientific papers and written several books; the value of his contributions to photographic science has been recognized by honours conferred upon him by photographic and chemical societies on both sides of the Atlantic.