The Times/1937/Obituary/Mr. Ferguson, K.C.

Mr. Ferguson, K.C.
Photographic research

Mr. William Bates Ferguson, K.C., who died yesterday in his eighty-fifth year, was distinguished both in science and the law.

The only so of the late Mr. Pearson Biggs Ferguson, J.P., of Manchester, he was educated at Manchester Grammar School, and at the age of 16 obtained an open scholarship at Merton College, Oxford, The next year he gained an open junior studentship in Natural Science at Christ Church. He took his degree in 1871 with first-class honours in Natural Science, and was afterwards engage at Oxford in research work and lecturing. In or about 1877, with Professor Odling, Vernon Harcourt, W. Fisher, and other, he tool part in the movement for the foundation of the Institute of Chemistry, and was one of the original Fellows, He was also a member of universities of London, Edinburgh, and Geneva. He had studied biology and physiology while at Oxford, but after a short experience at St. Thomas's Hospital he gave up medicine for the law.

He was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1882, and joined the Northern Circuit where he acquired a good practice as a junior both on circuit and in London He was junior to Sir Henry James, afterwards Lord James of Hereford, in the case of Ebrard v. Gassier, one of the heaviest cases ever tried in the Lancashire Palatine Court. In 1900 he took silk, but shortly after, owing to the serious illness of his wife, he had to reside abroad for some years with the result that he ell our of practice and thereafter devoted his tie to scientific research, although throughout he retained his interest in law and his chambers in the Temple.

Ferguson had long taken an interest in the scientific side of photography, and in 1900 was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, in which year he brought out his paper on copper toning, Having made the acquaintance of V. C. Driffield, he was naturally much interested in the work of that scientist and his partner, Hurter, and during his residence abroad he did much research worth with Mr. B. E. Howard, F.R.P.S., on their lines, and as a result thereof his and Mr. Howard's first published work was a paper on "Control of the Development Factor at Various Temperatures," read before the the Royal Photographic Society in 1905. The next year followed a paper on "A New Method of Calculating the Times of Development at Various Temperatures," which was the foundation of the system of time and temperature development now so widely known and used. Kodak, Limited, were the first to take it up, and other manufacturers followed in due course. Among his many inventions for the measurement of photographic densities, the F.R.B. photometer is now used by Ilford, Limited, a she standard instrument.

In 1915 Driffield died and left the Hurter and Driffield manuscripts and apparatus to the Royal Photographic Society, and Ferguson was requested to charge of the bequest and arrange for their subsequent publication it eh special Hurter and Driffield memorial volume of the society's journal. He devoted two years to this work, and afterwards raised fund for the Hurter and Driffield Memorial Lectures, the first of which he himself gave in 1918. In recognition of his work the Royal Photographic Society, although he held an ordinary Fellowship, conferred him the great honour of an Honorary Fellowship in 1914 and the Progress Medal in the same year. In 1918 the coveted Hurter and Driffield Medal was awarded to him for his research, and in 1925 in further recognition of his work he received the Davanne Medal of the Société Française de Photographie, that being the first occasion on which it had been awarded to anyone not of French nationality, He was also member of the council and a vice-president of the Royal Photographic Society, and had on various occasions been nominated for the office of president, which honour he had declined. He was from its formation a vice-president of the British Photographic Research Association.

While practising at the Bar he was jointly with the late William Ambrose, K.C., M.P., the author of Ambrose and Ferguson's Land Transfer Acts. He was a man of distinguished appearance with a charm of manner which endeared him to all those with whom he came in contact. "Fergy" in his day was one of the most populate and beloved members of Northern Circuit Bar mess, and as a raconteur had not many equals. He was one of the few members of the Bar wearing a beard. He spoke a number of languages and had a great learning , and his versatility was source of wonder to his many friends. He married in 1893 Eveline, only daughter of the late R. Peyton, and had two daughters together with his wife survive him. His older daughter is the wife of Mr. Sidney Read. of the Patent Office.