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For History relating to (especially Paterson) Developing Tanks:

Early history of the Paterson company, and its founder Donald (MacDougal) Paterson:

Chronology and product information relating to the 'Acu' chemistry range, click here:

For general history relating to the Paterson company and its products post-1985:

R.F.Hunter Ltd were long time distributors of Paterson Products but in 1967 Johnsons of Hendon became Paterson's distributors. The reason for this is probably explained by an entry in 'News of the Week' in Amateur Photography magazine for 4th January 1967.

"Arthur Blackburn has retired from the chairmanship of R.F.Hunter Ltd after 52 years in the photographic trade. Blackie, as he is known to so many, joined Hunters, now a subsidiary of Johnsons of Hendon, in 1924, four years after the firm's inception. Perhaps his most significant contribution to its prosperity was the signing of an agreement in 1929 with Paul Franke of Franke & Heidecke whereby Hunter became agents for the Rollei (a new agreement was signed in July 1966)."

When Johnsons was acquired by the Hestair Company and underwent major restructuring and abandoned chemical production in 1974, Paterson took over production of booklets similar to the Johnsons of Hendon ~ 'Home Photography' series. Similarities with the Johnsons 'Home Photography' series include the Paterson 'Book of Photography' also being edited by Kevin MacDonnell, the printers also being Sawtells of Sherborne, Dorset, and number of pages also being 104.

This (originally speculation) was confirmed to me by Alan Meek in an e-mail he sent in September 2005. Alan said:

"I started working for Paterson in 1968 and became Technical Manager of the company until I left in 1981. I was responsible for the production of the majority of the (Paterson) publications you illustrate. For many years before 1975 Johnsons of Hendon published successive copies of the Book of Photography (Alan means the 'Home Photography' series) which was written by Kevin MacDonnell (and 'Pip' Pippard). When Johnsons decided to cease publication Kevin came to Paterson with an updated (and Paterson orientated) version so we added to it and published our version. Over the years we updated it and eventually took over the writing ourselves.

Much of the writing was done by our General Manager George Ashton, who had joined us from Ilford Ltd. I too wrote many of the chapters. You mention Richard Bradford and David Morris, who were both photographers at Paterson. Some time after I left, Paterson approached me to write the new chapters for the 1987 revision so that it covered the latest chemicals and the enlarger/timer/analyser items for which Paterson had just purchased the manufacturing rights from Philips". Practical Photography in their April and May 1980 issues refer to George Ashton as "one time editor of Popular Photography (a US magazine that led to production of the UK magazine Practical Photography in 1959) and now Technical Director of Paterson products Ltd, with Mr.P.W.Deer being the Managing Director."

Richard Bradford, as mentioned by Alan Meek (above) joined Paterson Products in July 1974, straight from school, as a Photographic Assistant earning a princely £800 p.a. (yes ! eight hundred !). He worked "down in the studio / darkroom at 2-6 Boswell Court, WC1N 3PS. Boswell Court was Head Office at the time, with manufacturing being carried out in a relatively new factory in Dagenham. Richard was enthusiastic and was rewarded by being allowed 'Day Release' (one day per week) from Paterson, to study at the School of Photography in Harrow College of Technology & Art. Harrow College was excellent at the time but has since been swalled up / amalgamated with some other Institution.

Richard started work with John Piggott, photographer, whose picture is in the bottom-right segment the cover of the 'Paterson Book Of Photography' (see below - enlarged to the left). John emigrated to Canada in late 1974 or early 1975.

David Morris (see mention above by Alan Meek, and also below, as a photographer involved with the Paterson Book Of Photography) had been a catalogue photographer at Heals before joining Paterson. So when subsequently he was asked how long he worked at Patersons he'd say '5 catalogues'... He eventually moved to Wakefield and continued catalogue work for one of the mail-order houses. Richard and he are still in touch.

Richard says "David was much more at home in the studio, and it was me who seemed to do much of the darkroom work".

"About 1975, to celebrate Paterson's 25 years, it was decided to take a photograph of the entire range of products, rather like the double-page '1970s' picture(below). This involved hiring a large studio (I think through Pelling and Cross) and a 10x8 camera, not to mention getting one-of-everything there.

"Chemical production was going on at Dagenham, and each batch would be sent up to Boswell Court for testing. I cannot remember how acceptability was judged in the early days, but not long after I joined we got a sensitometer and densitometer. If I remember correctly, a batch of developer was accepted if it fell within 1/3 f-stop of the norm. The early batches of Aculux (supposed to be Paterson's liquid standard developer, i.e. to rival D-76 and ID-11) produced some notoriously contrasty negs with FP4 when metered correctly, but was fine with Tri-X. HP5 was always a bit thin..."

"The main reason, though, for getting the sensitometer was because Paterson was moving into colour film and paper chemistry (C41 and EP2 equivalents). Under the guidance of Geoffrey Crawley, this was handled by George Ashton. Testing under 'real' amateur-like conditions fell to me. Yes, roll upon roll of colour neg film was exposed and processed with a sensitometer strip in spiral developing tanks... We even tray-processed colour paper to test the chemistry's exhaustion point; normal testing was, of course, drum processed. In effect, I was a machine..."

"The other revolution at the time was the introduction of resin-coated paper, which drastically cut processing, especially washing, time. Paterson brought out a range of processing aids. I remember we had regular visits from the Ilford rep, whose paper we used, but not from Kodak".

"Boswell Court was also home to medium-format (roll film) 'texture screen' production. These were thin negatives of patterns which the photographer / printer could put into the enlarger's negative carrier with his / her own negative to produce a pattern on the print. They had quite a following, but each to their own... The film used for the texture screens was Panatomic-X, owing to its fine grain. This was specially produced for Paterson by Kodak in bulk rolls; these were loaded into magazines and fed though a Homrich camera. Dagenham produced the 35mm equivalent screens."

"Of course, the major event during the time I was there was Donald Paterson's (always referred to as 'Mr Paterson' of course) death on 3rd August 1975. He was a regular visitor to the darkroom / studio; imagine, a boss who actually new something about the products he made and sold and did not just regard them as production and sales figures... Donald Paterson's death was doubly unfortunate since he had been due to sign a finance deal upon his return from holiday."

"Donald Paterson was a Leica (SLR) man, which he used for his African (Kenya) wildlife photos; I think it may have been those photos which earned him the FRPS. He may also have used Hasselblad as well, although I never saw him with one."

"In the Boswell Court studio, we had a Leica M3 with retractable Elmar lens for 35mm work, a Rolleiflex 'T' (75mm Tessar ~ the directors gave this to John Piggott when he left), and a Mamiya C330 (interchangeable lens TLR) with 80mm and 180mm lenses. Although the Rollei and Mamiya were both the same format (2¼" square negatives, 12 on 120 roll film), they produced quite different-looking results. Both had their advocates, and both were favourites with the wedding photographers of the day. I preferred the versatility of the Mamiya - it could go close as well as take different lenses - but I admit the Rollei build quality was silky-smooth in comparison."

"For catalogue work, there was a Cambo 5x7" monorail (see left), invariably used with a 4"x5" back, with 150mm and 210mm (Rodenstock?) lenses, all mounted on a Cambo studio stand. In other words, all this was pretty much standard photographer's equipment for the time. Except for the studio flash. Paterson were Rollei's UK distributor at the time and produced some well-built but rather under-powered studio flash lights; for most product shots, even when relatively closely lit, 2 flashes were required."

"We had sheet and roll film processed in a lab in the basement of Neal's Yard, Covent Garden; the walk or short tube ride there (it made little difference to the journey time) gave us some fresh air and daylight."

"The darkroom was also standard for its day. One room served for film loading and processing - the usual Kodak deep tanks with D76 / ID11 as the developer, an assortment of developing tanks, and a Marrutt drying cabinet."

"A second room was for printing - a De Vere 504 enlarger (left) with condenser head and glass negative carrier, equipped with Rodenstock Rodagon lenses, a Paterson 35mm enlarger with a Leica enlarging lens (an excellent combination, the enlarger featuring a flat underside to the condenser which pressed the negative flat). The Paterson enlarger had a filter drawer for colour printing. The filters Paterson supplied for colour printer were from Lee Filters. There may have been a third enlarger, but it wasn't regularly used."

"Rounding off the darkroom was a finishing / mounting room. This had a large drum glazing machine which needed some TLC to get a consistently good glaze on non-RC (non-Resin-Coated) 'glossy' papers; when RC papers came along we 'sandwiched' the prints between photographic blotting paper and the cloth belt, since otherwise the surface next to the drum would not dry. Heating in the room also came from a flat-bed mounting press. It got pretty warm in there!"

"Within very generous limits - never reached in practice - Paterson let anyone who wanted to, to use company film, paper and chemicals for their own purposes. This was on the principle that we could provide invaluable feedback and real-world experience. As far as I know, no-one abused this privilege by running their own business. Likewise, we took care not to do 'private' work in company time or to leave it lying around. For one thing we were pretty busy, and for another you would never know if one of the directors was going to pop in... I know this strays a little from a straight history, but perhaps it helps put things in context."

"One final note. Paterson produced a catalogue featuring a silhouette of a male figure carrying a box with a Paterson logo (no copy on this site at this time)." The 'model' was Richard. "Those who saw the result claimed to recognise my gait!" "All artwork for Paterson's ads and catalogues was done by a graphic artist called, I think, Rabley."

The other director at the time was T.A. (Alan) Bailes. There was also Ian Stears and David Murray who took care of exports. Our paths occasionally crossed later at places like Photokina, but I wonder what happened to them. Alan Meek was the Technical Manager and what would now be called the Line Manager for the darkroom / studio staff. He had an assistant, Tim Norgate, who I think stayed with Paterson after they moved to the West Midlands; I think he also had something to do later with a range of pinhole cameras.

Alan Meek's secretary was Barbara, the blonde who you can see on the cover of the 'Book Of Photography' and 'Book Of The Darkroom' (for enlarged sections, see left).

Richard Bradford left Paterson Products at the end of 1976 and subsequently worked for Agfa-Gevaert and De Vere