The Place of Collaboration and Chemistry between Men

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the shared institutional medium that enabled the interaction between science and photography and between Sutton and Maxwell. It places a special emphasis on King’s College, London, where both accepted a teaching position, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, where both crossed paths giving and attending talks and advances in photography were featured regularly as scientific or of scientific service. At both institutions the chemist and spectroscopist W.A. Miller was of value to Maxwell’s and Sutton’s researches. The chapter also notes the opportunity the city of London and its institutions offered, unlike Cambridge, for interactions across intellectual, professional and social distinctions in the pursuit of technical and practical researches. These institutions provided the incentive and the opportunity for Maxwell’s public photographic demonstration.