YES, THIS IS MY ALBUM.
BUT LEARN ERE YOU LOOK,
THAT ALL ARE EXPECTED
TO ADD TO MY BOOK.
YOU ARE WELCOME TO QUIZ IT,
THE PENALTY IS –
YOU ADD YOUR OWN PORTRAIT
FOR OTHERS TO QUIZ.
… More Elizabeth Rachel Day’s album opener 1860s
Race horses, draught horses and trotters were the focus of Minnie Drew’s family life and livelihood. Husband James Drew entered a starter “Miss Bobby” in the Spring Handicap, January 1917, and younger brother Albert Nevin, recently returned from Launceston with his new bride Emily, was racing his starter “Rosalind” in the Derwent Handicap at Moonah by August. James Drew also showcased draught and dray horses at the annual Hobart Show, selling them eventually when he acquired a motor van for his parcel delivery business. Minnie’s older brother William Nevin established a carrier and furniture removal business which he partnered with James Drew in the 1910s, operating from Morrison St. Hobart Wharf. When siblings May, Albert, George and William Nevin moved to the property at 23-29 Newdegate St. in 1923 on the death of their father Thomas J. Nevin (once a photographer, always a photographer – he was buried with “photographer” listed as his occupation on his burial certificate), William Nevin maintained the carrier business there until his untimely death in a horse and cart accident in 1927. … More Youngest daughter Minnie Nevin m. James Drew (1884-1974)
First Cousins and both chidren of master mariners, Edward Goldsmith (1836-1883) and Elizabeth Rachel Day (1847-1914 ) were born in London and baptised at St Mary’s Church, Rotherhithe, known as the Mayflower Church, one decade apart. Elizabeth Rachel Day arrived in Hobart Tasmania as an infant, where her sister Mary Sophia was born in 1853, and married professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin at Kangaroo Valley, Hobart on 12 July 1871. Edward Goldsmith made several voyages to Tasmania with his father Captain Edward Goldsmith, attended the Governor’s Levee there in 1855, went to Trinity College Cambridge in 1857, married, became a surgeon, managed his father’s estates in Kent and died young at Rochester, UK, just 43 yrs old … More Cousins Edward and Elizabeth baptised at St Mary’s Rotherhithe
-Upon receiving the cup, Capt. Goldsmith remarked that he would retain the token until death ; and, with reference to some observations made by Mr. Carter, intimated it was not improbable he should next year, by settling in Van Diemen’s Land with Mrs. Goldsmith, become a fellow-colonist.
-The goblet, which was manufactured by Mr. C. Jones, of Liverpool-street, bears the following inscription:-“Presented to Captain Goldsmith, of the ship Rattler, as a slight testimonial for having introduced many rare and valuable plants into Van Diemen’s Land. January, 1849.” The body has a surrounding circlet of vine leaves in relief. The inscription occupies the place of quarterings in a shield supported the emu and kangaroo in bas relief, surmounting a riband scroll with the Tasmanian motto-” Sic fortis Hobartia crevit.” The foot has a richly chased border of fruit and flowers. In the manufacture of this cup, for the first time in this colony, the inside has undergone the process of gilding. … More Testimonial to Captain Edward Goldsmith 1849
Photographer Thomas J. Nevin’s father-in-law on marriage in 1871 was Captain James Day (1806-1882), father of his wife Elizabeth Rachel Day (1847-1914). Her younger sister Mary Sophia Day (1853-1942) married Captain Hector Axup (1843-1927) in 1878. Thomas Nevin’s wife Elizabeth Rachel Day was named after Captain James Day’s sister, Elizabeth Day (1802-1875), who married master mariner Captain Edward Goldsmith (1804-1869) in 1829 at St George, Liverpool, England. … More The Master Mariner in-laws: Captains Goldsmith, Day and Axup
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
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
From the early 1860s Thomas Nevin operated a photographic studio at New Town with the business name of “Thomas Nevins”, i.e. the “s” signifying the possessive, as in “the studio of Thomas Nevin”. By 1865 he was assistant to photographer Alfred Bock whose residence and studio he leased from A. Biggs at 138-140 Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town on Alfred Bock’s departure for Victoria in 1867 (Hobart Town Gazettes 1870s). Nevin maintained the business name of the studio, The City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town. With partner Robert Smith, they formed the firm Nevin & Smith, producing stereographic views and hand-tinted studio portraits (TMAG and Private Collections). The firm Nevin & Smith was commissioned to take an album of portraits of Tasmanian children in 1868 to be presented to the Duke of Edinburgh (State Library of Victoria Collection). However, the partnership was short-lived. Robert Smith moved to Goulburn, NSW and the firm known as Nevin & Smith was dissolved on 22nd February 1868, undersigned by Thomas Nevin’s solicitor, later Attorney-General, W.R. Giblin. Thomas Nevin continued with the business name, the City Photographic Establishment at the same address, and exhibited photographs of Melville St under snow (1868) and A Party at the Rocking Stone Mt Wellington (1870) at the Wellington Park Exhibitions (TMAG Collection). He also exhibited stereoscopic views, prize cards and cartes-de-visite at the Tasmanian Poultry Society’s annual exhibition at the Town Hall in August 1869 and the Town Hall Bazaar on 1st April, 1870 (Mercury Friday 1 Apr 1870 Page 2 ). For his work as the firm of Nevin & Smith, he was granted a colonial Royal Warrant, and for his work with the Lands and Survey Department of the colonial government, he was granted another colonial Royal warrant by authority. By 1870 Nevin was providing photographs of mining and reservoir works at the Huon and Cascades on government commission, as well as providing group portraits and landscapes for tourists to the Lady Franklin Museum and and John Franklin’s Tree at Kangaroo Valley, Hobart. … More Key dates in Thomas Nevin’s life
Albert most likely chose the black and white photograph as the best representation of himself he could give his fiancee Emily Maud Davis in 1914, and having succeeded in winning her hand, presented the painted version to Emily on their wedding day, March 5th 1917 in Launceston. By August 13, 1917, they were back in Hobart and Albert was racing again, at Moonah in the Derwent Handicap … … More Portraits of youngest son Albert with horse 1914-17
This is an old black and white enlargement of a detail of a portrait of Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day (1847-1914) in her later years, taken ca. 1900 by her husband. Just her face was magnified to an unusually large size, measuring approx. 8×10 inches. It has the impact of a modern cinematic close-up. The magnified final image was pasted to grey cardboard. The remarkable aspect of the image is the evidence of hand-painted strokes around the hair line and eyes. The original photograph may have been hand-coloured, though not as heavily as the fashion of painting over photographic portraits which became popular in the 1890s. Many of her husband’s early extant portraits of his wife, of himself, his private clients, and even a handful of extant mugshots of Tasmanian convicts taken during his commission to provide the colonial government with prisoner identification portraits in the 1870s, show evidence of hand-tinting. Some were expertly and finely done done by Nevin and his studio assistants, others were ineptly daubed with blobs by clients or collectors after purchase. Elizabeth Rachel Day may have assisted her husband in his studio as his colourist from the beginning of her marriage, and may have even touched up this photographic portrait of herself taken thirty years later. … More Thomas Nevin’s portraits of his wife Elizabeth Rachel Day (1847-1914)
Third son William John Nevin was born 14th March 1878 at the Town Hall, Hobart, where his father Thomas Nevin was appointed Office and Hall keeper for the City Corporation and photographer for the Municipal Police Office, having leased his photographic studio in 1876, while maintaining a photographic practice and studio with younger brother Jack Nevin at New Town. This son was named after Thomas Nevin’s younger brother, William John Nevin (1852-1891), known as Constable John Nevin, and Jack to the family. … More Third son William John Nevin (1878-1927)
Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day, wife of Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923), was born in London on 26 March 1847, and christened at St Mary’s, Rotherhithe, London, UK on 28th April 1847, the eldest daughter of Captain James Day and Rachael Pocock who were married at St David’s Church Hobart on January 6th, 1841. Her younger … More The Nevin group portrait and wedding photographs 1871
May was the child who witnessed the expansion of her father’s commercial studio practice in the early 1870s to include his commissions with the Colonial government working in prisons. She was the child whose father was also a police photographer and whose uncle Jack Nevin was a Constable at the Hobart Gaol. Her education was significantly enhanced by ready access to the world’s newspapers and books held in the Public Library, housed within the Hobart Town Hall, when her parents took permanent residency there on her father’s appointment to the civil service in 1876. … More First-born child May Nevin and the China trade soapstone vase/ brush washer
Less than a dozen portraits and stereographs have survived in public and private collections of the work conducted by Robert Smith (n.d.) and Thomas J. Nevin while operating the firm with the name business name “NEVIN & SMITH” at the former studio of Alfred Bock, 140 Elizabeth Street, Hobart (Tasmania) from ca. 1867 to February 1868 when the partnership was dissolved. This rare hand-tinted portrait was taken by Thomas J. Nevin of his fiancée Elizabeth Rachel Day (1847-1914) while in partnership with Robert Smith ca. 1868. … More Nevin & Smith tinted vignette of Elizabeth Rachel Day 1868
NEVIN-DAY – On Wednesday, 12th July, at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley, by the Rev. J. Hutchison [Hutchinson], Thomas, eldest son of Mr. J. Nevin, of Kangaroo Valley, to Elizabeth Rachael [Rachel], eldest daughter of Captain Day, of Hobart Town.
Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin had seven children between 1872 and 1888, six surviving to adulthood. … More Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day & children
“An old Hobart resident, Mrs. M. S. Axup, died in Northcote, Victoria, recently while on a visit to her son. She was in her 90th year, having been born at Lenah Valley in 1853. A daughter of the late Capt. James Day who sailed his own vessel, trading between Hobart and the Mainland before the advent of steam, she married a seafaring man, Capt. H. C. Axup, well known in shipping circles and the Launceston pilot until his death some years ago.” … More Mary Sophia Day (m. Axup), sister-in-law
Visual pleasures for the newly-weds Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin in 1871 were presented at the Hobart Town Hall in the form of panoramas and dioramas. Charles’s panorama (1871) occupied 10,000 square feet of canvas, and each painting was 17 feet by 8 feet. … More Visual pleasures 15 July 1871: the Dioramas
When commercial photographer and government contractor Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) married Elizabeth Rachel Day (1847-1914) on July 12, 1871 at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley (now Lenah Valley), Hobart, Tasmania, his “rank” – indicating occupation, profession and social status – was “photographer”. By 1871 he was working on commission to provide the Lands and Service Department with photographs of changes and damage to landscapes and buildings. For his bride, however, no ranking applied. Elizabeth Rachel Day’s “rank” is just a dash. … More Thomas Nevin’s Rank 1871
This studio portrait taken by Thomas J. Nevin of his wife about the time of their marriage is one of six extant portraits Nevin took of his wife between 1865 and 1900 in descendants’ collections. … More An early carte of Elizabeth Rachel Day
This photograph was taken at Thomas Nevin’s studio, The City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town, possibly by his younger brother Jack (Constable John Nevin or W. J. Nevin). The same studio decor – the lozenge-patterned carpet and floral-patterned drape – appears in several extant studio portraits by Thomas Nevin of family members and private clientele up to the mid-1870s. This is an albumen print on a buff carte-de-visite mount. Someone created a doodling in ink or biro in the lower left-hand corner of the image on the carpet, possibly tracing a photochemical stain. There is no studio stamp on the verso, indicating the image was taken by a member within the family, for family viewing only. … More Thomas & Elizabeth Nevin’s Wedding Photograph 1871
Tasmanian photographer | Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) 
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