The true origins of the photographic misattribution to non-photographer and Port Arthur official A. H. Boyd of Thomas J. Nevin’s police mugshots of Tasmanian prisoners taken in the 1870s-1880s lies with a reference to the art historian Margaret Glover’s article “Some Port Arthur Experiments” (1979) by Chris Long and/or Warwick Reeder (1995).

In 1979, Margaret Glover published an article about Port Arthur titled Some Port Arthur Experiments (In: T.H.R.A. Papers and Proceedings, vol. 26 no. 4, Dec. 1979, pp. 132-143). The article deals with plants and animals and steam engines and the tenure of Commandant James Boyd (during the years 1853-1871). No mention is made of his successor Commandant A. H. Boyd, no mention is made of prison photography, and no mention is made in this article of A. H. Boyd’s niece E.M. Hall, nor is her children’s story, “The Young Explorer” (1931/1942). Yet this same article by Glover and this same children’s story by E.M. Hall have been cited since the 1980s by Chris Long as evidence that A.H. Boyd not only had his own photographic studio but photographed prisoners at Port Arthur in 1873 or was it 1874? Those who believe this “belief” cannot quite settle on the date – because it did not happen! … More Margaret Glover and the fabrication of photohistory