Day: June 9, 2007

Mary Anne Nevin, sister of Thomas Nevin

June 9, 2007

Mary Ann Nevin, born near Belfast Ireland in 1844, arrived in Hobart in 1852 with her mother Mary Nevin nee Dickson, her brother Thomas Nevin (b.1842), her sister Rebecca Nevin (b. 1847), and younger brother William John (Jack) Nevin (b.1852). All four children were under twelve years old. Mary Ann was placed on the sick list of the Fairlie, on the voyage out, on 23 April 1852, together with her mother, and in the company of some of the 290 convicts and Parkhurst prison boys on board. She was listed as “child of guard”. … More Mary Anne Nevin, sister of Thomas Nevin

John Nevin’s marriages to Mary Ann Dickson and Martha Genge

June 9, 2007

Disambiguation: Mary Ann Nevin
Thomas Nevin’s sister Mary Ann Nevin had married master mariner John Carr at the Wesleyan Chapel close to the Nevin family home at Kangaroo Valley Tasmania on 3rd May, 1877, but she died one year later at Sandridge, Victoria only 22 days after giving birth to her only child, a daughter also named Mary Ann. The only surviving child of this marriage was named after three Nevin family members; her deceased mother Mary Ann Carr nee Nevin; her mother’s mother, i.e. grandmother Mary Ann Nevin nee Dickson; and her first cousin Mary Ann Drew nee Nevin, also known as Minnie, last daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin. … More John Nevin’s marriages to Mary Ann Dickson and Martha Genge

Robert Hughes “The Fatal Shore” with mugshots by T. J. Nevin

June 9, 2007

One of those convict images – last on lower right – is of Thomas Harrison. It is the same image which was printed on the postcard to advertise the exhibition of the T. J. Nevin convict photos at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in 1977, curated by John McPhee. Of the more than 100 photographs of Tasmanian prisoners which were exhibited from the QVMAG collection taken by Nevin, why the curator McPhee and the authors of Nevin’s biographical entry Stilwell and Kerr (1922) made the choice of the photograph of Harrison is strange, since it is not typical of the majority of his prisoner photographs which demonstrate the same technical approach used in his vignetted commercial studio portraits of clients, patrons and family members. Possibly Harrison was chosen because of his defiant stare and tattered clothes, signifiers of desperation and social deviance. … More Robert Hughes “The Fatal Shore” with mugshots by T. J. Nevin

Archives Office of Tasmania convict photographs by T. J. Nevin

June 9, 2007

The colonial Government of Tasmania had adopted the practice of taking identification photographs and establishing an Habitual Criminals Register or Rogue’s Gallery in 1872 from precedents set by the British Prevention of Crimes Act of 1871, and incoming legislation in NSW and Victoria. The extant photographs are variously “booking photographs” or “mugshots” taken of men who were arrested, arraigned, sentenced, reconvicted and/or discharged during the 1870s and early 1880s. For the most part they were recidivists, habitual criminals and repeat offenders. Thomas Nevin took the majority of these photographs at the Municipal Police Office (PO on their criminal record sheets) at the Hobart Town Hall, and at the Supreme Court and Hobart Town Gaol. The AOT records were copied from the QVMAG collection in the 1970s, although some originals were acquired in the 1950s from the Radcliffe Museum at Port Arthur via the Department of National Parks which managed the site. The original 1870s-1880s prisoner photographs – both paper prints and mounted as cartes-de-visite – were salvaged by John Watt Beattie for reproduction and for sale to tourists at his convictaria museum in Hobart, removing many from their original record in the process. Others were sourced from records originally held at the Town Hall Municipal Police Office and from records held at the Sheriff’s Office, Hobart Gaol. Beattie bequeathed his large collection to the Launceston Municipal Council which was then acquired by the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (1930). … More Archives Office of Tasmania convict photographs by T. J. Nevin