Month: August 2009

John Nevin and Gould’s white goshawk

August 31, 2009

“WHITE HAWK.- We were yesterday shown a fine specimen of this bird wounded in Kangaroo Valley by Mr. Nevin. The bird is the common White Hawk (Leucospiza Novae Hollandiae) of this colony and Australia, and is well figured in Gould’s large work on Australian Birds under the name of Astur Novae Hollandiae. Gould was formerly of opinion that the White Hawk was merely an albino variety of the New Holland Goshawk, but in his more recent work the “Handbook of Birds of Australia,” he has placed it under the genus Leucospiza. This hawk is by no means rare. … More John Nevin and Gould’s white goshawk

Fraudulent  pretensions

August 29, 2009

This image of a building is not a vignetted carte-de-visite photograph of a man in prison clothing, yet the curator of photographs at the State Library of NSW, Alan Davies, is proposing it is sufficient evidence to warrant a claim that A.H. Boyd was a photographer, and to extend that claim to a proposition that Boyd was also the photographer of the “bulk” of the 300 extant prisoner cartes, despite all the available evidence of attribution to Thomas J. Nevin. As recently as August 2009, Alan Davies maintained that proposition, which is founded in the cliched equation “Tasmania + convicts=Port Arthur” … … More Fraudulent  pretensions

The early deaths of Thomas Nevin’s sisters and niece, Rebecca, Mary and Minnie Carr

August 27, 2009

John Nevin snr married again in 1879, at the age of 71 yrs, to widow Martha Salter nee Genge, aged 46 years old. The deaths of all these female members of Thomas Nevin’s family may have prompted his father to take another wife as a gesture of in locus parentis for his granddaughter Mary Ann or Minnie Carr who survived her mother’s death less than a month after her birth. Mary Ann or Minnie Carr, as she was called, was taken as a baby from Victoria and from her father John Carr’s care, back to Tasmania into the Nevin family home at Kangaroo Valley in 1878. Called Minnie, she is not to be confused with her cousin Minnie Drew nee Mary Ann Nevin, Thomas and Elizabeth’s daughter born in 1884, named Mary Ann after her grandmother, aunt and cousin..

John Nevin snr’s grand-daughter Mary Ann or Minnie Carr was cared for by his second wife Martha Nevin (nee Genge, widow of Salter) and moved with her from Kangaroo Valley on John Nevin’s death in 1887, but Minnie Carr too succumbed to death in 1898. She died at Martha Nevin’s house in Patrick St. Hobart of internal bleeding, shortly before her 21st birthday (1878-1898). … More The early deaths of Thomas Nevin’s sisters and niece, Rebecca, Mary and Minnie Carr

Portraits by T.J. Nevin in The Lucy Batchelor Collection

August 19, 2009

This selection from the Lucy Batchelor Album of 1870s carte-de-visite portraits by Tasmanian photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923), submitted courtesy of Robyn and Peter Bishop, was scanned from the original page. Each carte is mounted behind the cut-out frame of the album leaves. The album is ca. 150 years old. … More Portraits by T.J. Nevin in The Lucy Batchelor Collection

T.J. Nevin’s prisoner mugshots,  Mitchell Library NSW

August 11, 2009

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 of these men were habitual offenders with long criminal records who spent as much if … More T.J. Nevin’s prisoner mugshots,  Mitchell Library NSW

First son and second child,  Thomas ‘Sonny’ Nevin

August 8, 2009

Thomas ‘Sonny’ James Nevin jnr (1874-1948) married Gertrude Jane Tennyson Bates (1883-1958) at the Wesleyan Church, Hobart, on February 6th, 1907. Her father, Walter Tennyson Bates, a renowned bandmaster, had died in 1905. By July 1907, Gertrude’s mother, Elizabeth Jane Bates nee Jones, had left Hobart and arrived in Sydney with six of her seven children – Gertrude remaining in Hobart with husband Thomas James ‘Sonny’ Nevin (jnr). Her mother and siblings migrated first to Vancouver, and eventually to California in 1910. … More First son and second child,  Thomas ‘Sonny’ Nevin

Thomas Nevin's big tabletop stereograph viewer

T. J. Nevin’s big tabletop stereograph viewer

August 3, 2009

Although this image is faint – it is a scan of a print pasted into the scrapbook of his son George Ernest Nevin (1880-1957) which is held by Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin’s descendants in the Shelverton family – it shows clearly enough that George’s father, photographer Thomas J. Nevin, was rather fond of his big box table top stereograph viewer. It provided clientele with a ready amusement, a novel experience of 3D. The Victorian fascination with this “advanced” photography is quite understandable. Viewing a static stereograph, three images can be seen, not just one: the central image appears in deep perspective, with the image split into halves on either side. A double lens stereograph viewer of this size could hold a large number of stereograph cards; turning the wooden handle changed the card being viewed, providing a motion picture effect. In Nevin’s self-portrait – not a selfie in the strict sense, of course, taken probably by his younger brother Jack Nevin – a frame holder on top is propped up. In the two portraits below, the holder is flat. An earlier portrait of Thomas Nevin, taken ca. 1868, shows him wearing white gloves, posing with a smaller portable stereoscopic viewer, similar in size to a stereoscope camera. … More T. J. Nevin’s big tabletop stereograph viewer

Nevin’s mugshots: the transitional pose and frame

August 1, 2009

Between 1876 and 1886, transitional years in the history of 19th century prison photography, changes took place in the way Thomas Nevin posed the prisoner and printed the final mugshot. 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 mount 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 Thomas Nevin had ceased professional photography and his younger brother John Nevin was deceased. … More Nevin’s mugshots: the transitional pose and frame