Hugh Lee Pattinson

Hugh Lee Pattinson FRS (25 December 1796 – 11 November 1858) was an English industrial chemist. He was also an entrepreneur, sharing the risk of major industrial developments with famous ironmaster Isaac Lowthian Bell and cable manufacturer Robert Stirling Newall. Although known in his time for his 1833 patent "An improved method for separating silver from lead", a process that bears his name, he is best remembered today for his daguerreotype photographs taken in 1840. Among these is the earliest known photograph of the Niagara Falls. Biography Pattinson was the son of Thomas Pattinson, a shopkeeper in the country town of Alston, Cumberland, and his wife Margaret Lee; they were Quakers. He was educated at local private schools. He was interested in science from an early age, doing experiments with electricity when he was 17, and also studying the chemistry of metals.