Charles Edward Kenneth Mees

Background

Charles Edward Kenneth Mees was born on May 26, 1882 in Wellingborough, England. He was the oldest of three children of Reverend Charles Edward Mees, a Wesleyan minister, and Ellen Jordan.

Education

A sickly child, Mees developed a keen enthusiasm for chemistry. His enthusiasm continued unabated during his studies at Kingswood School, Bath, and at Harrogate College, Yorkshire. From 1898 to 1900 he attended St. Dunstan's College, Catford, but pursued the study of chemistry independently in his fully equipped home laboratory. In 1900, Mees received a scholarship to work at University College, London, with the physical chemist Sir William Ramsay. Mees and a fellow student from St. Dunstan's, Samuel E. Sheppard, jointly pursued research on their common enthusiasm, photography, and received the B. Sc. degree in 1903. They continued their collaborative work under Ramsay, substantially extending Ferdinand Hurter and Vero Charles Driffield's pioneering investigations of sensitometry and the kinetics of photographic development. This major contribution to the theory of the photographic process brought them the D. Sc. degree in 1906 and publication of their work as a book in 1907.

Career

Although as a student Mees had been a follower of the Fabian socialist movement and an advocate of income redistribution plans, he now began to regard the cooperative efforts of science and industry to expand the pool of available resources as the solution to the social problem of poverty. Therefore, When Ramsay persuaded him to seek an industrial position, he joined the pioneer English dry plate firm of Wratten and Wainwright as joint managing director and partner. At Wratten and Wainwright, Mees improved and introduced new products, and published numerous papers reflecting his continued investigations into color photography and the improved resolving power of photographic emulsions. Soon his technical accomplishments won him an international reputation. In 1912, when George Eastman of the Eastman Kodak Company was seeking a research scientist to establish and direct an industrial research laboratory for his Rochester photographic firm, he selected Mees. Late in 1912, Mees assembled a staff of twenty researchers from England and America. He and Eastman agreed at the outset that nothing of major significance was to be expected from the laboratory for ten years. Drawing upon his industrial experience and his limited observations of the pioneer industrial research organizations of William Rintoul of Nobel and William R. Whitney of General Electric, he established the laboratory as one that was "convergent, " focusing on problems associated with subject photography. Yet, Mees also fostered an academic atmosphere within the laboratory, with self-directed research and the free flow of information. He employed the conference system of staff communication in order to ensure staff discussion and to lessen the possibility of director-dictated research. During the first decade of operation, the staff quadrupled in size and expenditures increased six-fold. During that time the staff published nearly two hundred papers in leading scientific and technical journals and introduced two important bibliographic tools for photography. The number of technical papers published by Mees declined as administrative duties demanded more of his energies, yet his forceful personality and power of expression carried influence. In 1919, Mees created a new development laboratory and became corporate director of research and development; four years later he was named a director of the company. Upon Eastman's retirement as president in 1925, Mees became one of the six officers of the management committee, the principal operating group of the company. In 1934 he was elected vice-president in charge of research and development. Under Mees's direction, the laboratory became not only the international center for photographic research but also the vital key to the continued dominance of the Eastman Kodak Company in worldwide photographic markets. It was central in the introduction of many new products and improvements, and Mees became an international spokesman for industrial research. He wrote the leading book on the theory and administration of industrial research, The Organization of Industrial Research. He and his associates also compiled the definitive scientific treatise on photography, The Theory of the Photographic Process. In 1947, Mees retired as director of the laboratory but continued until 1955 as vice-president in charge of research and development. In 1955 he moved to Hawaii. He died in Honolulu.

Achievements

• Mees made very significant contributions to the understanding of the photographic process, publishing about 250 articles and 10 books.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Fundamentals of Photography (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Fundamentals of Photography No means e...)

  • Investigations On the Theory of the Photographic Process

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Organization of Industrial Scientific Research

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The photography of coloured objects

Views

Possessing a positivist view of science, Mees emphasized measurement, experiment, and the accumulation of data. Since only two or three academic institutions actively pursued photographic research, Mees saw the new laboratory as an institute for the scientific study of photography.

Personality

Mees's enthusiasm, imagination, and insight inspired and encouraged an unusually productive research staff that numbered nearly 750 when he retired. Mees lost one of his legs in 1951.

Connections

In 1909 Mees married Alice Crisp; they had two children.

Father:

Charles Edward Mees

Mother:

Ellen Jordan

Wife:

Alice Crisp

References

• A biography-autobiography of Charles Edward Kenneth Mees, pioneer of industrial research