Photographer Beaufoy Merlin
1871
Glass photonegative
Henry Beaufoy Merlin had a range of names (Murlin, Muriel, Merling) and a range of jobs (journalist, theatre owner, actor, lecturer and illusionist), before taking up photography in Victoria in 1864. He travelled north with his assistant, Charles Bayliss, as the ‘American and Australasian Photographic Company’ and reached Sydney in 1870. They developed a unique style of photography, recording every building in the towns they visited. His association with Holtermann in Hill End in 1872 gave rise to a remarkable visual documentation of NSW and Victoria. He died, aged 43, the following year.
From the Australian Town and Country Journal, 4 October 1873
DEATH OF MR. BEAUFOY MERLIN.—The numerous friends of the above gentleman throughout the colony will learn with deep regret that he died, after a very short illness, on Saturday afternoon, of inflammation of the lungs supervening upon the epidemic (a kind of influenza) which has lately been so general in Sydney. Mr. Merlin had won the esteem of a wide circle of friends by his great kindness of heart, and singularly unpretentious, straight- forward, and genial character. Energetic, temperate, and active to a remarkable degree, his unexpected decease will surprise as well as grieve all to whom he was known. As a photographic artist he was almost without a rival, while his talents as a writer were of a very superior kind, although want of leisure greatly interfered with his literary tastes. [Australian Town and Country Journal, 4 October 1873]
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