Born: 1818, 31 December - US, MA, Boston Died: 1873, 25 January - US, CA, San Francisco Gender: Male Active: US / Australia
Perez Mann Batchelder opened his first daguerreotype studio in Boston. Around 1852 he moved to the Californian goldfields, travelling about the mining camps with a portable studio. In 1851 gold was discovered at Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. In 1853 Batchelder sailed to Australia and opened his first studio on Collins St in Melbourne. His brothers later joined him and Nathaniel opened a studio in Sydney. In 1855 Walter Woodbury, later to invent the Woodburytype process, worked as an assistant to the Collins St studio. Perez Batchelder returned to the U.S sometime after 1857. A news report from the (Melbourne) Argus dated November 19, 1860 described an attempt by Perez Batchelder and James Black to take aerial photographs of Boston from a balloon. Though Felix Nadar had the same idea two years before, Batchelder and Black's images are the earliest surviving aerial photographs.
Some of the information here was sourced from the Dictionary of Australian Artists Online (www.daao.org.au/) which has entries on the four Batchelder brothers.
[Courtesy of John Toohey, March 2010]
Perez Mann Batchelder
Portraits
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Genealogy of Perez Mann Batchelder
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