The collection of cased photographs comprises 32 photographs, mostly portraits of the extended Youle family, a British merchant family residing in Recife, Brazil, in the mid-nineteenth century. Included are 14 daguerreotypes, 18 ambrotypes, one tintype, and two albumen prints. While the makers of most of the photographs in the collection are unidentified, three daguerreotypes that did not originate with the Youle family were made by Fredricks and Weeks in Recife in 1851.

Alfred Phillips Youle, one of the few sitters identified in the collection, was born in London in 1824. He was one of the ten children of Peter Youle (London, 1788-London, 1863) and Ann Jones Shepherd Youle (1788-1873). It is not known when Alfred Phillips Youle arrived in Brazil, but by 1851 he had already joined his older brother Frederick and George Deane as a partner in Deane, Youle & Company, commission merchants whose transatlantic trade included sundries such as sugar, preserved meats, and spirits. Alfred Phillips Youle returned to London sometime in the 1860s, and by 1872 he was named to the first board of directors of the Great Western Railway Company Limited, the "Greitueste," which was formed to build railway lines in Western Brazil. He was also on the board of directors of the Conde d'Eu Railway, Limited in Parahyba, Brazil.

35 Photographic Prints

Contact Library Reproductions and Permissions.

Copy prints are open for use by qualified researchers. The original photographs are restricted.