AN ambitious online project to archive the photographic works of former Lacock Abbey resident and photography pioneer William Fox Talbot has begun.

The University of Oxford's renown Bodleian Libraries say nothing of this scale has been attempted for photography before and they are working to compile an online catalogue raisonné to be used as a research tool into his work and the invention of photography.

It will include images of thousands of photographs and negatives by Talbot and his close circle, including his wife Constance and his mother Lady Elisabeth Feilding to which members of the public and scholars can contribute research to.

Talbot is best-known for taking the first negative out of a window at his home in Lacock Abbey in 1835 and has been called the British 'founder of photography'.

The library spent two years raising money to buy a Fox Talbot archive from a private owner before securing the final £2.25m of more than £3m needed to purchase it last year. It includes artefacts, portraits, diaries and photographs.

During his career Talbot and his collaborators created more than 4,500 distinct images. Around 25,000 of his original negatives and prints are known to survive worldwide. Some are held by the British Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Media Museum and numerous other institutions, and in the ownership of private individuals worldwide.

Traditional catalogues raisonnés are often published as printed volumes but the Talbot catalogue will be a dynamic online publication, allowing material to be published in draft form in order to make as much information available as early as possible.

The project is expected to be finished by 2018 and is being undertaken by Professor Larry J. Schaff who has spent more than 40 years researching Talbot. He is also founder and editor of the online database The Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot, which contains annotated full transcriptions of more than 10,000 of Talbot’s letters.

A blog has been launched to provide updates on the development of the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné and it can be found online at: foxtalbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk