Month: May 2010

Watering the Town Hall trees too “infra dig”  for the caretaker

May 24, 2010

On a dry Spring afternoon, a day or so before 19th September, 1879, a reporter at The Mercury newspaper office looked out his window and across the street to the Hobart Town Hall, sized up the state of the saplings struggling to survive in front of the portico, and sat down to pen a vituperative paragraph about the “caretaker” who, he insinuated, considered himself above a task as trivial as watering the trees. … More Watering the Town Hall trees too “infra dig”  for the caretaker

Cardboard convict Hyde Park barracks, Sydney, NSW

Julia Clark: A Question of Stupidity & the NLA

May 22, 2010

Thomas J. Nevin and descendants are apparently one of the more recent examples in a long line of Clark’s personal targets. See this article on her MO in Hobart museums by M. Anderson. Clark’s attack on the “Georgian splendour school of history” is deeply ironic, given that this Commandant A.H. Boyd she so firmly wants to promote as the prisoners’ photographer at Port Arthur was just that – a Georgian middle-class gent revelling in the spoils of his own corruption, a renowned bully reviled by the public in his own day. In Kay Daniel’s words, Clark’s analytical method is hypocritical – it’s “the view from the Commandant’s verandah school of history” – which she prescribes while pretending solidarity with her target, whether Aborigines or convicts. … More Julia Clark: A Question of Stupidity & the NLA

The Excelsior Coal Mine at New Town 1874

May 16, 2010

Mr Nevin, photographer, Elizabeth-street, appears in this advertisement as an agent able to take orders for the delivery of coal from the Excelsior Coal Mine which was located on Mr Ebenezer Sims property at Kangaroo Bottom (Kangaroo Valley New Town), in close proximity to the home of Nevin’s parents. This coal was for domestic use but may have been included in the coal specimens which were exported to the Royal Colonial Institute, accompanied by James Boyd on board the Ethel in 1874. … More The Excelsior Coal Mine at New Town 1874

Husbands and Wives NPG Exhibition 2010

May 12, 2010

An exhibition of early colonial portraits titled HUSBANDS and WIVES has recently opened at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Australia. Apart from the usual collection of cartes-de-visite, there are several daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of individuals, couples and family groups on display, including the coloured ambrotype by Thomas Glaister, ca. 1858 (below, from the NPG online). … More Husbands and Wives NPG Exhibition 2010

Gunner Athol Tennyson Nevin and his WW2 medals

May 8, 2010

In 1936 Athol was living in Hobart with his mother Gertrude Nevin nee Tennyson Bates and working as a pastry cook. The Electoral Rolls listed him then with the middle name of “CLARENCE”, i.e. Athol Clarence Nevin, but by 1940 when he enlisted in the Australian Army, he had married Winifred Aird and adopted his mother’s father’s middle name TENNYSON as his middle name. He was discharged from the Army in October 1945, having seen extensive warfare with the 2/8 Field Regiment in Egypt and Syria, in the Middle East, and on Borneo, in the Pacific. The 2/8 FR was one of the 9th Division’s three field regiments and it fought as part of the “famous division” at El Alamein and Brunei Bay. … More Gunner Athol Tennyson Nevin and his WW2 medals