Abney was born in
Derby, England, the son of Rev. Edward Henry Abney (1811–1892), vicar of
St Alkmund's Church, Derby, and his wife, Catharine Strutt. His father was owner of the
Firs Estate. William was educated at
Rossall School, the
Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and joined the
Royal Engineers in 1861, with which he served in
India for several years. Thereafter, and to further his knowledge in photography, he became a chemical assistant at the
Chatham School of Military Engineering. Abney was a pioneer of several technical aspects of
photography. His father had been an early photographic experimenter and friend of
Richard Keene, an early Derby photographer. Keene became a close friend of William and his brother Charles Edward Abney (1850–1914). Both Abney sons subsequently became founder members of the Derby Photographic Society in June 1884. His endeavors in the
chemistry of photography produced useful photographic products and also developments in astronomy. He wrote many books on photography that were considered standard texts at the time, although he was doubtful that his improvements would have a great impact on the subject. Abney investigated the blackening of a negative to incidental light. In 1874, Abney developed a dry photographic
emulsion, which replaced "wet" emulsions. He used this emulsion in an
Egyptian expedition to photograph the transit of
Venus across the sun. In 1880, he introduced
hydroquinone. Abney also introduced new and useful types of photographic paper, including in 1882 a formula for gelatin
silver chloride paper. He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society in 1876. Abney conducted early research into the field of
spectroscopy, developing a red-sensitive emulsion which was used for the
infrared spectra of
organic molecules. He was also a pioneer in photographing the
infrared solar spectrum (1887), as well as researching
sunlight in the medium of the atmosphere. In 1893 he inherited
Meashan Hall from a rich aunt. He became assistant secretary to the Board of Education in 1899 and advisor to that body in 1903. In 1900 he was Director of the Science and Art Department. He sold his father's estate, most of which went for housing in the
St Luke's Parish of Derby, but retained 11 acres until 1913 when they were purchased by the
Council to become the site of
Rykneld Secondary Modern School and Rykneld
recreation ground. Abney invented the "
Abney level", a combined
clinometer and
spirit level, used by
surveyors to measure
slopes and
angles. He was responsible for the "
Abney mounting" of a
concave grating spectrograph in which the photographic plate was fixed and the entry slit moved to accommodate different regions of the
spectrum. He died on 3 December 1920 in
Folkestone,
England. He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church in Folkestone. ==Family==