Professor Richard Hill Norris FRSE FRSGS (1830-1916) was a British physiologist, spiritualist and photographer. From the 1880s he began microscopic photography of blood corpuscles and was a pioneer of

microphotography Microphotographs are photographs shrunk to microscopic scale.

. In 1856 he invented the dry collodion photographic plate.

Life

Norris studied medicine at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, developing an early interest in microphotography; mainly taking pictures of frogs' blood. In 1856 he invented the first dry collodion photographic plate, during 1858 founding the Patent Dry Collodion Plate Company in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

- one of the first commercial producers of photographic materials in the world. From 1862 to 1891 he was Professor of Physiology at Queens College in

. In 1878 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, their proposers being Sir Thomas Richard Fraser,

John Gray McKendrick John Gray McKendrick FRS FRSE FRCPE LLD (12 August 1841 – 2 January 1926) was a distinguished Scottish physiologist. He was born and studied in Aberdeen, Scotland, and served as Regius Professor of Physiology at the University of Glasgow fro ...

, Alexander Dickson and Alexander Buchan. He was President of the Birmingham Philosophical Society. Sometime within April 1882 he complained to

The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...

, stating Giulio Bizzozero had plagiarised pieces of his work. He was still patenting photographic processes in 1888, By December 1890 having went into partnership with Harold William Southall of

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is an affluent suburban area of central Birmingham, England, historically in Warwickshire, and curved around the southwest of the city centre. In the 19th century, the area was under the control of the Gough-Calthorpe family a ...

, founding the Birmingham Dry Collodion Plate and Film Company; In concurrence constructing a sizable factory within

Yardley, Birmingham Yardley is an area in east Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. Historically it lay within Worcestershire. Birmingham Yardley is a constituency and its Member of Parliament is Jess ...

which initiated production in 1893. However, this company failed and was liquidated in 1895. Norris was also involved in microscopic studies of metals heating and cooling together with

George Gore George F. Gore (May 3, 1854 – September 16, 1933), nicknamed "Piano Legs", was an American center fielder in Major League Baseball who played for 14 seasons, eight for the Chicago White Stockings, five for the New York Giants, one for the St. ...

at the Institute of Scientific Research in Birmingham. His personal interests extended deeply into spiritualism, considering himself an amateur medium - becoming involved in seances and

automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spir ...

. He believed in allopsychism,

mesmerism Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all liv ...

and hypnotism, Engaging in studies of Christine Beauchamp. He did not publish any of his thoughts on spiritualism however corresponded with several parties such as Alfred Russel Wallace,

William Crookes Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing t ...

, Emma Hardinge and Samuel Guppy.

Family

In 1852 he was married to Ann (1827-1901). Their son Richard Hill Norris (1853-1919) was also a doctor; Other sons included Arthur Kingsley Norris and Benjamin Stuart Norris. His brother was Joseph Norris, Victorian photographer.

Publications

*''On Stasis of Blood and Exudation'' (1862) *''On the Laws and Principles Concerned in the Aggregation of Blood Corpuscles'' (1869) *''On the Extrusion of the Morphological Elements of the Blood'' (1871) *''On the Physical Principles Concerned in the Passage of Blood Corpuscles through the Walls of the Vessels'' (1871) *''The Physiology and Pathology of the Blood'' (1882)

References

1830 births 1916 deaths 19th-century English photographers Alumni of the University of Edinburgh English inventors English spiritualists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Photographers from Birmingham, West Midlands British physiologists {{UK-photographer-stub