Duryea Family photograph albums

The Duryea Family included four generations of photographers. Townsend Duryea (1823-1888) was born in New York, North America and had experience with photography as early as 1840. Arriving in Melbourne in 1852, he entered into a photography studio partnership with Alexander McDonald before moving to Adelaide in 1855. With his brother he founded Duryea Bros. and pioneered early photography in South Australia. His career in photograph was cut short by a fire in his studio that destroyed 50000 negatives, considered the finest colonial record of South Australia ever to have existed. He died in 1888. Four of his sons continued the photographic tradition including his oldest son Townsend Duryea Jr. (1854-1925), who operated a studio under the Duryea name in Adelaide from approximately 1888 until the early 1900s. In turn, his son Alva Duryea (1888-1974) operated studios in Adelaide and Melbourne before taking on a Sidney Riley photography franchise in Brisbane. In turn, his son John Townsend Duryea entered into the business in the 1950s