Tag: Alfred Winter

Elwick racecourse, Hobart, Tasmania

Apprentices: The Good, The Bad and The Careless

September 18, 2009

Among photographers’ apprentices in 1870s Hobart was the notable Joshua Anson. He stole cameras, photographic equipment, mounts, chemicals and albums from his employer Henry Hall Baily over five years between 1872 and 1877. He ordered the importation of glass negatives and mounts from London and Paris on H. H. Baily’s account and without Baily’s consent. He also reprinted albums by Samuel Clifford as his own work. The value placed on the goods far exceeded the court valuation of £180. Chief Justice Francis Smith informed the jury that theft on this scale warranted a sentence of 14 years. The Law Digest (1897) recorded the event with the normative 14 year sentence, and the refusal of bail. Joshua Anson was sentenced to just two years because he was young, 22 years old at the time of the trial in June 1877, and pleaded to be kept apart from the others prisoners on incarceration because he felt he was above them. He was photographed on incarceration at the Hobart Gaol in 1877 by the Nevin brothers… … More Apprentices: The Good, The Bad and The Careless

An Ornithological Disaster: Thomas Nevin’s emu 1878

September 10, 2009

“AN ORNITHOLOGICAL DISASTER.– A young Emu the property of Mr. Nevin keeper of the Town Hall, came to an untimely end last week by being strangled in trying to force itself through the fence of the paddock in which it was kept at the rear of the Town Hall. The owner states his intention to present the Emu to the Royal Society’s Museum.” … More An Ornithological Disaster: Thomas Nevin’s emu 1878

Nevin’s Royal Arms studio stamp

November 10, 2007

Commercial photographers in Tasmania in the 1870s and 1880s were extended two basic but very different types of government support, and these differences are evident in the designs of their studio stamps. Henry Hall Baily, for example, used a stamp signifying patronage by the Governor of Tasmania. He photographed notable citizens, visiting VIPs and official functions, often with the express intention of submitting his photographs to national and international exhibitions. In other words, Baily was never contracted under tender to work for the Colonial government, merely rewarded for special commissions by the Governor. His stamp from the mid 1880s was printed with the words “Under the Patronage of His Excellency Sir G. C. Strahan”, and the initials “K.C.M.G” beneath. Thomas J. Nevin, by contrast, was issued with a stamp which contained the design of the Supreme Court seal and the Prisons Department publications banner because he served the Colonial government as a photographer on a regular basis in Supreme Court sittings. … More Nevin’s Royal Arms studio stamp