Lot Essay
Comprising one self-portait (re-taped), (see illustration), one sixth-plate portrait of the photographer's wife Anne Alexander (née Dillwyn), two self-portraits with Anne (one sixth-plate, one ninth-plate), a sixth-plate of an unidentified elderly Quaker couple and four portraits of ladies in Quaker costume, two of these identified as Lydia Brown (sixth-plate) and Mary de Horne (quarter-plate).
Richard Dykes Alexander was a member of the banking firm of Alexander, established in Needham Market, Suffolk in 1744. He married Ann Dillwyn (1783-1868), the sister of Lewis Weston Dillwyn, John Dillwyn Llewelyn's father, in 1810. A member of a leading Quaker family, Richard Dykes Alexander was active in the temperance movement, and published a series of temperance tracts. He also built, at his own expense, the Temperance Hall in Ipswich High Street. It was during the 1850s that his influence encouraged a series of weekly lectures delivered by the Astronomer Royal, Prof. George Airey, at this hall, as well as other visitors such as Joseph Harding, who features in the album in lot 26.
Richard Dykes Alexander was a member of the banking firm of Alexander, established in Needham Market, Suffolk in 1744. He married Ann Dillwyn (1783-1868), the sister of Lewis Weston Dillwyn, John Dillwyn Llewelyn's father, in 1810. A member of a leading Quaker family, Richard Dykes Alexander was active in the temperance movement, and published a series of temperance tracts. He also built, at his own expense, the Temperance Hall in Ipswich High Street. It was during the 1850s that his influence encouraged a series of weekly lectures delivered by the Astronomer Royal, Prof. George Airey, at this hall, as well as other visitors such as Joseph Harding, who features in the album in lot 26.