William Henry Fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) was an English scientist and inventor of photography on paper. Master of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire and briefly a member of Parliament, he announced his photogenic drawing in 1839, weeks after Daguerre's rival process, and in 1841 patented the calotype, the negative-positive method on which all later photography was based. The Pencil of Nature, issued from 1844, was the first book illustrated with photographs. A mathematician, botanist and Fellow of the Royal Society, he also worked on the decipherment of Assyrian cuneiform and published on etymology and antiquities.