45 Facts About Townsend Duryea

Townsend Duryea and his brother Sanford Duryea were American-born photographers who provided South Australians with invaluable images of life in the early colony.

Townsend Duryea was touting for business at his studio upstairs 68 King William Street, at the corner of Grenfell Street rented from Alexander Hay.

Townsend Duryea worked in the prosperous country towns Gawler and Burra in December 1855, when the style of the company changed to "Duryea Brothers", indicating that Sanford was running the business in his brother's absence.

Townsend Duryea was in the Clare district around 1856, where he photographed John and Rebecca Ross.

Townsend Duryea visited Port Lincoln in August 1857,.

Townsend Duryea introduced the Sennotype process, for producing superior tinted photographs, to South Australia.

The achievement for which Townsend Duryea is best remembered is his Panorama of December 1865.

Townsend Duryea was appointed official photographer for the 1867 visit of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to Adelaide in 1867.

Townsend Duryea produced a bound booklet to present to His Royal Highness as a souvenir of his visit to Adelaide, and was rewarded with authority to use the slogan "By Royal Appointment".

Townsend Duryea's studio was destroyed by fire early on the morning of Sunday 18 April 1875.

Townsend Duryea left for Europe late May 1875 to organise re-stocking.

Townsend Duryea disposed of the boat by raffle later that year.

Townsend Duryea married twice in the United States: to Madelina Paff on 20 March 1844 at Hempstead, Queens, New York and had three children; and Elizabeth Mary Smith about 1854 at Long Island, New York and had five children.

Townsend Duryea married Catherine Elizabeth Friggens on 22 May 1872 at her residence in Adelaide, South Australia and had five children.

Townsend Duryea married Catherine Elizabeth "Kate" Friggens on 22 May 1872.

Townsend Duryea followed Townsend to Australia, perhaps as late as 1854, working with him and McDonald in Melbourne, Geelong, Hobart and Launceston.

Townsend Duryea left Adelaide in 1857 for Western Australia and settled at Mount Eliza near Perth where, on 18 March 1858, he married Ellen Amelia Leeder of Perth.

Townsend Duryea's wife had another son on 18 August 1862 in Adelaide, and on 25 April 1863 the Duryea brothers dissolved their partnership.

Townsend Duryea returned to the US around 1864, living in a town reported as Granthaven.

Townsend Duryea ran a photographic studio in 253 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York from 1888 to 1890.

Townsend Duryea was a daughter of Ulrich Hubbe, who was largely responsible for the Torrens Title system of land registration.

Townsend Duryea was appointed drawing master at Glenelg Grammar School from 1873 to 1875 as replacement for Wilton Hack, who had left for Japan.

Townsend Duryea married again, on 14 February 1882, to Ruth Wright.

Townsend Duryea moved to Mosman Bay, Sydney some time around 1900.

Townsend Duryea joined Duryea in Adelaide in 1866, later had his own studio in King William Street, specialising in child portraits.

Townsend Duryea's son T H Jones was a noted organist and choirmaster.

Townsend Duryea appears to have stayed with Townsend for around a year, and was replaced by John Hood.

Townsend Duryea moved to America, where he founded Spread's Art Academy which in 1902 became the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

Townsend Duryea was transported to Australia in 1846 for forgery.

Townsend Duryea married Emma Louisa Noble of Melbourne on 16 April 1875.

Townsend Duryea was an accomplished artist; her painting of R D Ross being favourably reviewed.

Townsend Duryea had a photography business in Moonta, which he advertised for sale in June 1875.

Townsend Duryea purchased "Duryea's Studio" from Nixon in April 1878.

Townsend Duryea moved to Christchurch, New Zealand in 1887 and purchased a studio at 150 Colombo Street in July 1887.

Townsend Duryea died by his own hand, having consumed a bottle of silver nitrate.

Townsend Duryea was born in Birmingham and came to Australia in the Havilah in 1855.

Townsend Duryea opened a gunmaker's shop on Grenfell Street in 1855, and for a short time worked with the Duryea Brothers as a photographer, specialising in mother and child portraits then opened his own studio in the Adelaide Arcade.

Townsend Duryea sold his home and extensive property in Stepney in 1858 to farm at Pomonda Point, near Wellington, South Australia, then from c 1875 at Harborne near Deniliquin and Wanganella, New South Wales.

Townsend Duryea married Mary Ann Ellis on 2 April 1863.

Townsend Duryea was producing photographs in Kapunda, South Australia from before 1865.

Townsend Duryea began working as a colorist in watercolours with Duryea's successor in Bourke Street, Dr Thomas A Hill, being introduced to the technique by Montague Scott, then joined the Adelaide Photographic Company some time before 1867, perhaps as early as 1865.

Townsend Duryea's work attracted the attention of Robert Barr Smith, who sponsored his studies at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from around 1877 to 1880, where he met with considerable success.

Townsend Duryea produced one of Governor William Robinson, painted in 1883, and in 1887 a small portrait of Bishop Reynolds, both for Catholic charities.

In 1886, he painted an altarpiece for St Rose's church in Kapunda then a portrait of Adelaide's ex-mayor William Townsend Duryea and was commissioned to paint another posthumous portrait, of the ophthalmologist Charles Gosse, who died in 1885 after a coach accident.

Townsend Duryea's painting of a fourteenth-century priest in an attitude of prayer once hung in the Jesuit seminary at Sevenhill, South Australia, and a painting Peasant Girl at the Shrine and a small painting Girl's Head are held by the Art Gallery of South Australia.