959
grapher, in July 1861. Ironically, it would bring Mulock
the recognition he longed for, but only in Brazil. The
pictures in the Emperor’s album are now housed in the
National Library at Rio de Janeiro (an undisclosed num-
ber were stolen in 2005) and the Moreira Salles Institute,
and have been published by Gilberto Ferrez (1989). The
photographs refl ect a combination of a civil engineer’s
eye and artistic sensibility. While Mulock records the
facts honestly and dispassionately, he always provides
plenty of detail to be gleaned by the interested observer.
His style has been compared with that of the “straight
photography” movement of the 20th century.
While in Bahia, Mulock had spent more time up-
country than in the city, where he had come down with
a serious bout of “intermittent fever” (probably malaria).
When he returned to England in the spring of 1862,
he was ill, complaining of liver problems. However,
by October he was in Swansea, Wales, working as an
engineer and surveyor for John Watson. While there, a
few months before his death, he wrote to Dinah asking
her to send him the photographs of the City of Bahia,
which she did. The whereabouts of these pictures are
unknown. The same is true of John Watson’s collec-
tion of Mulock’s complete photographs of Bahia. The
Vignoles family—direct descendants of C.B. Vignoles
and his son Hutton Vignoles, the resident engineer of
the BSFR—have donated 137 progress photos to the
Institution of Civil Engineers. The Bosch Foundation in
Stuttgart, Germany owns a number of Mulock’s photo-
graphs. There are also four prints at the Harry Ransom
Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
John Vignoles and Sabrina Gledhill
Biography
Benjamin Robert Mulock was born in Newcastle-under-
Lyme, England, on June 18, 1829, the youngest child of
Thomas Samuel Mulock, a Dublin-born nonconformist
preacher descended from minor Irish gentry, and Dinah
Mellard, the daughter of a prosperous Newcastle tanner.
Ben had two siblings: Thomas Mellard Mulock, and
Dinah Maria Mulock, who attained international fame
in her time as a novelist under her married name, Mrs.
Craik. In 1840, the family moved to London. That year,
Ben began learning music (he played the concertina and
the piano) and by 1843 he was showing an interest in
civil engineering. He was educated in London. After he
came of age and received his inheritance, he traveled
extensively. His most important work as a photographer
was done in Bahia, Brazil, between November 1859 and
April 1862. In early 1863, about a year after returning
from Brazil, he began showing signs of “melancholia”
and was “placed in Doctor Tuke’s asylum in Hammer-
smith” on June 7, 1863. He managed to escape but was
“knocked down and run over by a heavy van” (Reade
1915, 84–85). He died of his injuries fi ve days later.
See also: Mayall, John Jabez Edwin; Vignoles,
Charles Blacker; Dry Plate Negatives: Non-Gelatine,
Including Dry Collodion; Albumen Print; and Wet
Collodion Positive Processes.Further Reading
Collins, Michael, Record Pictures: Photographs from the Archives
of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Göttingen, Germany:
steidlMACK, 2004.MULOCK, BENJAMIN ROBERT
Mulock, Benjamin. Rosario Church.
Acervo da Fundação Biblioteca
Nacional, Brasil.