Leon Warnerke

Leon Warnerke (born 1837) was a Polish engineer and inventor in the field of photography, independence activist, revolutionary and successful forger. Leon Warnerke was a pseudonym; his real name was Władysław Małachowski.

Early career

Warnerke graduated from the Institute of Communication Engineers in St. Petersburg in 1859, then worked in Vilnius on the construction of the Petersburg-Warsaw Railway. In 1863 he joined the January Uprising and then became a member of the National Government in Vilnius. After the collapse of the uprising, the police, on the orders of general M. Murawjow, issued an arrest warrant for Małachowski with a reward of 10 thousand zlotys, as a result of which he was forced to flee the country. He escaped with his wife on board an English ship to Great Britain, carrying a false passport in the name of Warnerke. Around 1870, he settled with his wife and daughter in London, and under a changed name - Leon Warnerke, began research and design in the field of photography.

Inventor

Warneke is credited in 1875 with an improvement of "dry" collodion emulsion, which he poured on a paper substrate in the form of a film layer. He covered the smooth tissue paper successively with several layers of pure collodion and a solution of gum arabic, which formed a base for a photosensitive collodion or gelatin emulsion thick enough to be easily separated from the paper and permanently transferred to a moistened glass plate. The negative thus obtained could be used to make a positive, just like a glass negative. This photosensitive material was produced by Warneke's own company in sheets and rolls, from which rolls were cut into 100 photos for a single loading. Though, Warneke achieved satisfactory results, the high production costs mitigated against greater than moderate commercial success.

In 1875, Warneke constructed a camera equipped with a special cassette for the film he produced in loads of 100 photos. A monorail bellows camera, it was one of the first cameras in the world that permitted taking such a large number of photos on a single load. Warneke's construction was 9 years ahead of the 1884 invention of roll film by George W. Eastman and Fr. Hannibal Goodwin. Warneke's camera had a small window of orange glass in the rear wall through which could be read the number of the negative's frame and position each precisely as the film was wound through; a device commonly used in later, modern cameras.

In 1881, Warneke constructed another model of a photographic film camera, this time reduced to 40 negatives. The film used in this model was perforated with small holes at intervals of one shot. Because the sensitive gelatin emulsion had no paper backing, the orange window had to be replaced in this model with a tiny alarm bell triggered by an electrical contact being made through the perforations, which sounded after each frame moved to the appropriate point for taking a photo. The battery was inside the film roll. Warneke's idea was later used by Eastman's company.

Warneke's achievements include the sensitometer, the first effective means of measuring plate speed, developed in 1880, which in the following year was recognized as a standard by a special commission and became the basis for standardisation in the field of photosensitive materials. Warneke's sensitometer was equipped with an energised phosphorescent block of calcium sulphide for his exposing source through a glass plate with 25 square fields of increasing density, so that the light absorption coefficient increased twice every three degrees, similar to the scale of the modern DIN system. Sensitivity in Warnerke degrees was a measure used in England almost until the end of the 19th century, but abandoned by 1920.

Networking

Apart from his inventive and entrepreneurial activity, Warneke maintained contacts with other designers and inventors in the field of photography, as well as with photographic organizations and societies in various European countries. It was thanks to Warneke that the photographic community in London had the opportunity to learn about the latest achievements on the continent, such as the latest achievements of the Lumière brothers in the field of colour photography or the Gabriel Lippmann interference method.

Forger

Warnerke was a successful forger of several eastern European currencies, Russian roubles in particular, though was never caught. His supposed death in 1900 at the age of 63- he likely also faked to avoid arrest.

Legacy

The preserved collections and valuable instruments of Warneke, in the possession of the inventor's daughter, were incinerated during World War II in the bombing of London by the Luftwaffe.

Awards

Malachowski was awarded the Progress Medal of the Photographic Society of Great Britain (known as Royal Photographic Society today) in 1882.

External links

• "Crisp and even". The Economist. Retrieved 10 April 2006.
• Leyshon, William E. 1984-2001. "Photographs from the 19th Century: A Process Identification Guide" (PDF). Retrieved 10 April 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)