Captain Edward Goldsmith at Secheron Bay 1839

LAND. – The property of Mr H. W. Mortimer, sold on Wednesday last by Mr W.T. Macmichael, realized the following prices, viz. – an allotment fronting the Derwent, 115 feet, £5 5s per foot, £903 12s do do. 115 feet, £9 10s, £1092 10s; and the dwelling house and premises, £625. – Messrs Bilton & Meaburn, and Captain Goldsmith of the Wave were purchasers, and we have been informed it is their intention to lay down a patent slip, which Captain Goldsmith will bring with him next voyage.- … More Captain Edward Goldsmith at Secheron Bay 1839

Captain Goldsmith & death at sea of Antarctic circumnavigator Captain John Biscoe 1843

By October 1842, Captain John Biscoe was in such poor health and so impoverished from “the hardships and privations” endured on his voyages of circumnavigation and exploration of the Antarctic and desperate enough to return to England that a subscription was advertised for charitable donations to pay the costs of sending him and his family home. With urgency attending the voyage, Governor Sir John Franklin initiated the subscription and underwrote the cost for Captain Biscoe, his wife Emma Biscoe nee Crowe, and their four children to sail on board the barque Janet Izat, commanded by his good friend Captain Edward Goldsmith. … More Captain Goldsmith & death at sea of Antarctic circumnavigator Captain John Biscoe 1843

The desecration of Minnie Carr’s grave 1898

By the time of his cousin Minnie Carr’s death in September 1898, Sonny Nevin, eldest son of photographer Thomas J. Nevin was the closest she had to an older brother. The death notice stated that her mother’s residence was at 76 Patrick Street, Hobart but in fact that was the address of her grandfather’s widow, Martha Nevin, formerly Salter, nee Genge, who became her step-parents when Minnie’s mother Mary Ann Carr died soon after giving birth in Victoria. Family members had left ribbons and cards at her graveside but within days, these tokens were stolen. Sonny Nevin inserted an angry notice in the Mercury, offering a reward to anyone who knew about the thief responsible for the desecration of his cousin’s grave. … More The desecration of Minnie Carr’s grave 1898

Woman with pink ribbons by Thomas Nevin 1870s

This carte-de-visite of an unidentified older woman, one of many older women who favoured Thomas Nevin’s services for this type of full-length studio portrait, is unusual in that the pink tint applied to her bonnet ribbons is the same shade of pink applied to the ribbons worn by Pangernowidedic in a reprint, ca. 1875 of four Tasmanian Aborigines who were photographed originally in 1864 as a series taken at Government House. … More Woman with pink ribbons by Thomas Nevin 1870s

Captain Edward Goldsmith, the diarist Annie Baxter and a death at sea 1848

Captain Edward Goldsmith performed the burial rites at sea in the presence of the only other family member on board, younger brother Richard Landale, b. 1831, barely seventeen years old. Presumably the body was disposed of soon after death rather than kept on board until first landfall, which might have been the Falkland Islands where Captain Goldsmith routinely berthed to resupply his crew. On arrival in the Derwent at Hobart ten weeks later, Port Officer Lawrence recorded the names of all passengers at the time he boarded the vessel, but recorded nothing about the death at sea. Although death notices had appeared in the press by the 9th December 1848, the death itself was not listed in official death and burial registers, making it difficult to ascertain both the cause of the teenager’s demise and location of a cemetery memorial. … More Captain Edward Goldsmith, the diarist Annie Baxter and a death at sea 1848