Photograph Album of Fellows of the Royal Microscopical Society, by Maull & Co., London, 1867

Album bound in wine red leather, with raised dummy hinges and remains of two large brass clasps. 2 flyleaves + 25 card leaves + 2 flyleaves. Contains 79 carte de visite photographs (albumen prints) and 1 printed portrait visiting card mounted in the windows, together with 2 loose papers. Several loosely enclosed larger photographs and printed portraits, mostly later in date, are now kept and catalogued separately (see 12336 to 12343).

It was compiled soon after the society received its Royal Charter in 1866, in an attempt to represent the fellowship at that time in the form of a collection of carte de visite photographs. Some of them were presumably specially taken, but others were from stock negatives already held by Maull & Co. (formerly Maull & Polyblank), including several stalwarts of the society who had died. Many of the surviving original members (from 1839-40) are present, as well as a few new members, together with later additions made in the 1890s and 1900s. The presence of Sopwith, who joined the society in March 1867, among the main body of portraits that forms the original contents of the album, while McIntire and Wheldon, who joined in December 1867 and in 1868 respectively, are among the more miscellaneous ones that have obviously been added on the last few occupied pages, dates the original production of the album to 1867. Of the several photographs missing from the album, those of J. B. Reade can be identified as 12034 and 12035.

For fuller descriptive and historical commentary, and list of contents, see narratives.