Prisoner George WILSON aka White

Posted on by Thomas Nevin

Prisoner George White or George WILSON
Mugshots used as visual STEREOTYPES of convicts

NLA Catalogue (incorrect information)
PIC P1029/50 LOC Album 935/nla.obj-142919110
George Wilson, per Ld. [Lord] Lyndoch 3

POLICE RECORD 1872

Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime for Police, J. Barnard Gov’t printer

This police gazette notice published George Wilson’s conviction on 30 May -1 June 1872 at the Supreme Court Launceston, where he was sentenced to 12 yrs for housebreaking. It records that he was transported as White, per Ld Lyndoch, and was free in servitude when arrested.

Please Note: incorrect use of this mugshot (noted 20 October 2022)
The website:

https://www.dark-emu-exposed.org/home/call-for-submissions-to-the-risdon-cove-history-prize

is using this mugshot of prisoner George White/Wilson taken by government contractor photographer Thomas J. Nevin for police records in 1877 as a stereotypical image of a convict. They are messing with Nevin’s legacy in this manner, and indeed with the family history of George White’s or George Wilson’s descendants.

The man in this mugshot was not yet even born when all four of their candidates named “Edward White” allegedly witnessed events at Risdon Cove in 1804. The man known as George White and Wilson, supposedly represented by this mugshot (i.e. nothing is certain at this distance from the 1870s), was born at Wells, Somerset UK in 1820. He was transported for stealing a leg of pork (sentenced to 7 years) per Lord Lyndoch 3 in 1842 when he was 20 years old. He was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment with hard labor in 1872 (the man is 50+ yrs old in this mugshot) for housebreaking at the Supreme Court, Launceston. Transferred to the House of Corrections Hobart in 1877, he was photographed by T. J. Nevin on incarceration.

See the Archives Office Tasmanian names index –
https://stors.tas.gov.au/NI/1447521