![NRS 2138, Darlinghurst Gaol Photographic Description Book, Thomas Berry, [3-6040 p.93], Reel 5098](http://thomasnevin.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/nrs-2138-darlinghurst-gaol-photographic-description-book-thomas-berry-3-6040-p-93-reel-5098.jpg?w=150)
This gallery contains 17 photos.
Professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin was commissioned by his family solicitor, the Attorney-General W.R. Giblin, to photograph prisoners for the Colonial Government of Tasmania as early as 1871, the year the government of NSW authorised the Inspector of Prisons, Harold McClean, to commence the photographing of all prisoners convicted in the NSW Superior Courts. Continue reading
This gallery contains 27 photos.
DISAMBIGUATION: Three James Day names
Right at the outset we stress that this James Day was not a relative of photographer Thomas Nevin’s wife Elizabeth Rachel Day, nor was he related to her father by the name of Captain James Day, master mariner, who was born on 6 June 1806 in Yorkshire and died in Hobart on 17 November 1882, nor to Captain James Day’s first cousin, Captain Henry James Day of the 99th Regiment, guard captain of the Candahar 1842.
However, while researching the name “James Day”, the Old Bailey trial records and the transportation records of another “James Day” surfaced, a Londoner aged 52yrs old, who was transported for seven years to VDL on board the ship Sarah in 1836. Not many men of his advanced years were transported. These are his records and his story up to his death in 1863. Continue reading
This gallery contains 8 photos.
George Willis, aged 48 yrs, and originally transported in 1838, was convicted in the Supreme Court at Hobart on 10th September 1872, sentenced to six years for larceny, sent to the Port Arthur prison, and then relocated to the Hobart Gaol in October 1873 where he was photographed by T.J. Nevin on incarceration. Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
Although catalogued as a “portrait” of a “Port Arthur convict”, it is simply a mugshot – one of thousands taken for the Municipal Police Office at the Hobart Gaol, the Supreme Court and MPO by professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin between 1872 and 1886. He took this photograph at the Hobart Gaol when John Sullivan was tried in the Supreme Court Hobart on 18th August 1875 on a charge of larceny and sentenced to incarceration at the Hobart Gaol for a period of twelve (12) months, Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Video excerpt from: ABC TV (Aust) news report by Siobhan Heanue, 2 April 2011. NB: this report contains unfactual and erroneous statements by both the journalist and interviewee. For AUTHENTIC and ACCURATE research see this article which reviews the NLA … Continue reading
This gallery contains 11 photos.
Edward Wallace aka Timothy Donovan was a transported felon, arriving in Hobart from Dublin on board the Blenheim (2), on February 2nd, 1849. He became an habitual offender. His photograph is held at the Mitchell Library Sydney, SLNSW, in a box of nine cartes-de-visite of prisoners taken by Thomas J. Nevin at the Hobart Gaol. The collection was bequeathed by David Scott Mitchell to the State Library of NSW ca 1907 (PXB 274). The Mitchell Library has catalogued all these nine photographs with the date “1878″; however, two of the photographs were taken by Nevin in 1875 (those of Mullins and Smith), and this one, of Edward Wallace was more likely to have been taken by Nevin in 1872 or early 1873, when Wallace was re-arrested for absconding from the Hobart Gaol. Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Further refining the time span when photography was introduced as a means of police surveillance, from 1871 to 1875, the total number of persons convicted in the Superior Courts totalled three hundred and forty-three (343). This last group was photographed by Nevin from the start of his commission as a commercial photographer under government contract. Most of the photographs he took of males in this last group, between 1871 and 1875, survive in public collections today for TWO principal reasons: Continue reading
This gallery contains 10 photos.
Who were they? They were T.J. Nevin’s sitters for police records, mostly “Supreme Court men” photographed on committal for trial at the Supreme Court adjoining the Hobart Gaol when they were isolated in silence for a month after sentencing. If sentenced for a long term at the Supreme Court Launceston, they were photographed, bathed, shaved and dressed on being received in Hobart. These procedures, past and present, were reported at length by a visitor to the Hobart Gaol and Supreme Court in The Mercury, 8th July 1882 … Continue reading
This gallery contains 25 photos.
Jack Nevin was his elder brother’s assistant at the Hobart Gaol, Campbell Street during Thomas’ commissions as police photographer in prisons and police courts. He helped maintain one of their photographic studios in New Town, assisting in the production of stereographs and studio portraits on cartes-de-visite intermittently from the 1860s. He was employed at the Hobart Gaol under the supervision of the keeper Ringrose Atkins from 1874, and became a Constable on salary at the male prison at Cascades and H.M. Prison, Hobart in 1875, serving until his untimely death at age 39 in 1891. Continue reading
This gallery contains 2 photos.
Samuel Paul was probably photographed twice, first on his incarceration at the Hobart Gaol as soon as Thomas J. Nevin began the systematic documentation of prisoners in 1871, and again by Nevin at the Hobart Gaol on the prisoner’s release, 20 March 1878. The original verso has a transcription added at some time in the 1900s by archivists with the error in time and date of photographic capture. Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
THOMAS NEVIN’S ELEVEN The Mitchell Library at the State Library of NSW has catalogued eleven prisoner photographs so far which were taken by Thomas Nevin and his younger brother Jack Nevin at the Hobart Gaol between 1875 and 1884. All … Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
Between 1876 and 1884, transitional years in the history of 19th century prison photography, changes took place in the way Jack and Thomas Nevin posed the prisoner and and printed the final carte-de-visite. The technology changed too. Lenses after 1875 enabled a closer or larger image of the face. The prisoner was also posed closer to the camera in a full frontal position facing the photographer, and although the oval vignette was still the preferred format for printing, square frames were also used. The formalised front and profile pair of portraits using the methods of Bertillonage did not appear in Tasmanian prison photography until the late 1890s, by which time both Nevin brothers had ceased professional photography. Continue reading
This gallery contains 9 photos.
From the David Scott Mitchell Collection, 1907 … Photography © KLW NFC 2009 ARR. Above: Detail of Nevin’s carte of condemned prisoner James Sutherland with the blue hand-tinted scarf intended to reflect reality, one of several extant hand-tinted prisoner mugshots … Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
Job Smith was either photographed by Thomas Nevin when Campbell was one of sixty prisoners who had transferred to the Hobart Gaol and were assigned before July 1873 (see W.R. Giblin’s and the Inspector of Police reportof convicts tabled in the Parliament on July 17th, 1873), or just before William Campbell was returned to Port Arthur on May 8th, 1874 to complete his 8 year sentence, accompanied by Thomas Nevin in his role as police agent and photographer. Both were listed as passengers on the schooner Harriet’s way bill. Continue reading
This gallery contains 2 photos.
Younger brother Jack Nevin … William John Nevin (1852-1891) was known to the family as Jack. He was less than six months old when he arrived in Hobart, Tasmania with his parents and siblings Thomas and Mary Anne on board … Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The NLA has attributed this image to the copyists Searle and Beattie, ca. 1915. William Lee was photographed by Thomas J. Nevin on discharge , 12th September 1874. Lee was admitted to various pauper institutions and released on several occasions over a period of ten years. Continue reading
This gallery contains 14 photos.
More than 3000 Tasmanian prisoner identification photographs (mugshots) were taken by the brothers Thomas and (Constable) John (Jack) Nevin between 1872 and 1884. T. J. Nevin, 9 convicts photographs Mitchell Library NSW (PXB 274) Photo KLW NFC 2009 Arr Most … Continue reading
This gallery contains 22 photos.
Emanuel Blore and Job Smith aka William Campbell From the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Reproduced from page 36 of Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940: A Directory (TMAG 1995) Photo © KLW NFC 2008 ARR Click on image for large view … Continue reading
This gallery contains 7 photos.
The article below appeared in The Bulletin, a weekly Australian magazine on May 16, 1978. The journalist’s name was not recorded. It was published a year after the initial exhibition of the Tasmanian convict portraits by Thomas Nevin, held at … Continue reading
This gallery contains 19 photos.
Jack Nevin looks very relaxed and very savvy about the process of being photographed. His gaze is direct and very keen, his clothes suitable for everyday work in a foul place such as a prison. His salaried positions were primarily in administration, with a career path and ranking similar to the Keeper’s. Older brother Thomas Nevin had been a Keeper too of a public institution, at the Hobart Town Hall between 1876-1880, a special constable during the Chiniquy Riots of 1879, and assistant bailiff in the courts during the 1880s. Jack Nevin’s presence at the Gaol points to a close family involvement by both Nevin brothers with prisoner documentation – visual and written. Continue reading
PLEASE OBSERVE:
Copyright © The Nevin Family Collections & KLW NFC Imprint 2003-2013 ARR. All research is original and in press. Theft of our online intellectual property is actionable under the Moral Rights Act 2000, the Digital Agenda Act 2000, and the Digital Millenium Act (USA).
Thomas J. Nevin | Tasmanian photographer (1842-1923) by The Nevin Family Collections & KLW NFC Imprint is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Australia License.
ACADEMICS & PUBLISHERS please note:
Our stats show heavy and repeated downloads pertaining to Nevin's prison photography. Please consult your institution's guidelines on student plagiarism and Amendments to the Copyright Act 2000. Take care to consult the URL of the post/article you wish to cite, especially if you are using RSS, caches and readers, as every entry is subject to UPDATING at any time. Do not make hard copies. Librarians please note: do not archive as preserved pages. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
