William de Wiveleslie Abney

Life and career

Abney was born in Derby, England, the son of Rev. Edward Henry Abney (1811–1892), vicar of St Alkmund's Church, Derby, and his wife, Catharine Strutt. His father was owner of the Firs Estate. William was educated at Rossall School, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and joined the Royal Engineers in 1861, with which he served in India for several years. In 1870 he became an instructor in telegraphy at the Chatham School of Military Engineering. He also worked on photography and offered instruction on the topic to officers. While working here he invented the "Abney level", a combined clinometer and spirit level, used by surveyors to measure slopes and angles. He was responsible for the "Abney mounting" of a concave grating spectrograph in which the photographic plate was fixed and the entry slit moved to accommodate different regions of the spectrum. In 1877 he moved from Chatham to the Science and Art Department, South Kensington, under Sir John Donnelly. He retired with the rank of captain in 1881. From 1899 to 1903 he served as a secretary in the Board of Education, later serving as an advisor.

Abney was a pioneer of several technical aspects of photography. His father had been an early photographic experimenter and friend of Richard Keene, an early Derby photographer. Keene became a close friend of William and his brother Charles Edward Abney (1850–1914). Both Abney sons subsequently became founder members of the Derby Photographic Society in June 1884. His endeavors in the chemistry of photography produced useful photographic products and also developments in astronomy. He wrote many books on photography that were considered standard texts at the time, although he was doubtful that his improvements would have a great impact on the subject.

Abney investigated the blackening of a negative to incidental light. In 1874, Abney developed a dry photographic emulsion, which replaced "wet" emulsions. He used this emulsion in an Egyptian expedition to photograph the transit of Venus across the sun. In 1880, he introduced hydroquinone. Abney also introduced new and useful types of photographic paper, including in 1882 a formula for gelatin silver chloride paper. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1876.

Abney conducted early research into the field of spectroscopy, developing a red-sensitive emulsion which was used for the infrared spectra of organic molecules. He was also a pioneer in photographing the infrared solar spectrum (1887), as well as researching sunlight in the medium of the atmosphere.

In 1893 he inherited Meashan Hall from a rich aunt.

He became assistant secretary to the Board of Education in 1899 and advisor to that body in 1903. In 1900 he was Director of the Science and Art Department. He was knighted in the same year. He sold his father's estate, most of which went for housing in the St Luke's Parish of Derby, but retained 11 acres until 1913 when they were purchased by the Council to become the site of Rykneld Secondary Modern School and Rykneld recreation ground.

He died on 3 December 1920 in Folkestone, England. He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church in Folkestone.