Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Diamond, Hugh Welch

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DIAMOND, HUGH WELCH (1809–1886), photographer, eldest son of William Batchelor Diamond, a surgeon in the East India Company's service, was educated at Norwich grammar school under Dr. Valpy. His family claimed descent from a French refugee named Dimont or Demonte, who settled in Kent early in the seventeenth century. Diamond became a pupil at the Royal College of Surgeons in London 5 Nov. 1828, a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1828, and a member of the College of Surgeons in 1834. While a student he assisted Dr. Abernethy in preparing dissections for his lectures, and subsequently practised in Soho, where he distinguished himself in the cholera outbreak in 1832. He soon made mental diseases his speciality, and studied at Bethlehem Hospital. From 1848 to 1858 he was resident superintendent of female patients at the Surrey County Asylum, and in 1858 he established a private asylum for female patients at Twickenham, where he lived till his death on 21 June 1886.

Diamond interested himself largely in the early success of photography. While improving many of the processes, he is said to have invented the paper or cardboard photographic portrait; earlier photographers produced portraits only on glass. In 1853 he became secretary of the London Photographic Society, and edited its journal for many years. In 1853 and following years he contributed a series of papers to 'Notes and Queries' on photography applied to archæology and practised in the open air, and on various photographic processes. He read a paper before the Royal Society 'On the Application of Photography to the Physiognomic and Mental Phenomena of Insanity.' A committee was subsequently formed among scientific men to testify their gratitude to Diamond for his photographic labours, and he was presented, through Professor Faraday, with a purse of 300l. Collections made by Diamond for a work on medical biography were incorporated by Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson in his 'Book about Doctors' (London, 2 vols. 1860). Diamond was a genial companion and an enthusiastic collector of works of art and antiquities. Several valuable archæological memoirs by him appeared in the 'Archæologia.'

[Athenæum, 3 July 1886; Medical Directory, 1886; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. passim.]