T. B. Jordan's photographic recording instruments

Abstract

Abstract Thomas Brown Jordan was a ‘mathematical and philosophical instrument maker’ and Secretary of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society at Falmouth, Cornwall.1 On February 18, 1839, a Polytechnic committee was told that Jordan would be making self-registering meteorological instruments which used ‘photographic paper, prepared according to the directions of H. F. Talbot, Esq.’ At the Polytechnic on March 21, 1839, Jordan read a paper on his work and demonstrated some photographic registers. One of Jordan's ideas was a heliograph that showed the amount of sunlight throughout the day. Jordan improved his heliograph and Professor Daubeny of Oxford ordered one for Oxford University.2 Jordan was not the only Cornishman using Fox Talbot's process, for in the Polytechnic's 1839 Exhibition (8-10 October) a prize was given for a book of ‘Photogenic drawings’ entered by a Mr Moyle of Helston, Cornwall.3 Mr M. Moyle showed ‘specimens’ by the electro-type process at the Polytechnic in 1840,4 and the Report of the Polytechnic for 1840 was prefaced by a print from an electro-type made by Jordan, who donated an electro-type matrix and plate to the Polytechnic's museum.5