30 Rare Salted-Paper Prints Document Everyday Life in the United Kingdom From Between the 1840s to 1850s

The salt print was the dominant paper-based photographic process for producing positive prints during the period from 1839 through approximately 1860.

The salted paper technique was created in 1833 by English scientist and inventor Henry Fox Talbot. He made what he called "sensitive paper" for "photogenic drawing" by wetting a sheet of writing paper with a weak solution of ordinary table salt (sodium chloride), blotting and drying it, then brushing one side with a strong solution of silver nitrate.

Here is a rare photo collection of salted paper prints that shows everyday life of the United Kingdom from the 1840s to 1850s.

Broad Gauge Railway, Sidmouth, Devon, 1856

Church, Glouchestershire, 1857

Country church, ca. 1850

Country house, 1855

Excavation site, ca. 1850

Family group at church, 1854

Family group study, 1850

Farmyard at Stoke Castle, 1850

Glouchestershire Church, 1857

Hewell Grange, Worcestershire, ca. 1950

Lincoln Gateway, ca. 1850

Marine Parade, Worthing, 1850

Mary Le Port Street, Bristol, 1854

Men by church, 1850

Nelson's Column under construction, Trafalgar Square, London, April 1844

Nene Quay, behind the old market, Wisbech, 1853

Officers of the 4th Light Dragoons, 1855

Peterborough Cathedral, 1850

Queens Gate Lodge, London, 1850

Sailor on board HMS Superb, Plymouth, 1845

Scotish women reading and knitting, ca. 1950

Siston Court, Gloucestershire, 1857

The Sea House Hotel, Worthing, 1850

Tintern Abbey from the Road, June, 1856

Tree Study, 1853

Tree Study, 1858

Ven House, Milborn Port, South Somerset, 1850

Wakehurst Place, West Sussex, 1855

Walkingham Church, 1845

Winchelsea, 1854

(Photos from The History of Photography Archive)