Two? more than 300 Tasmanian prisoner mugshots were taken by Thomas and Jack Nevin between 1872 and 1884.
Mitchell Library NSW PXB 274
All are significant; these two examples, plus a third of the same man William Smith per Gilmore (3) give some idea of the contexts of the photographs themselves and the context in which Nevin worked.
The first is an example of an 1870s Tasmanian police record with ID photograph…
Rare document: T. J. Nevin’s convict carte in context
The Allan Williamson carte is catalogued at the State Library of Tasmania’s e-Heritage database:
Creator(s): Convict Department
Date: 1850 -
Description: Convict record form on parchment paper for Allan Matthew Williamson. The form is handwritten over a number of years beginning with the arrival in Van Diemans Land on 9th August 1850. The latest entry records the discharged convicts death on 16th October 1893. The form includes a photograph of the convict. It includes a full description of him at the time of his arrival in Van Diemans Land aged 28 and includes a full record of his offences and sentences of which there are many. The form is rare and a copy is on display at the site in the Museum room at the Penitentiary Chapel Historic Site.
Format: Documents and books
Object: government records
Material: parchment
Titles: Williamson Allan Matthew No 22396
Subjects: convicts
People/Orgs: Williamson, Allan Matthew
Places: Campbell Street Gaol, Hobart (Tas.)
Institution: Penitentiary Chapel Historic Site Management Committee
Object number: PCH_00033
Disclaimer – The content of this record is provided by Penitentiary Chapel Historic Site Management Committee. For any questions about the content please contact them.
The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery holds a number of similar criminal records with ID cartes attached, but this document is held on display at the Penitentiary Chapel Historic Site, Hobart. It is a complete prison record on parchment of Allan Matthew Williamson, per the ship Maria Somes (2), from his arrival in Van Diemen’s Land in 1850 right up to his death in 1893. Williamson’s photograph was pasted onto the parchment at the centre of the document, which was folded back on each side, rotated, and used for documenting Williamson’s criminal career for more than forty years. The photograph and others of Williamson were taken by Thomas Nevin in 1877 and 1878.
Thomas Nevin worked on commission from 1873 to the mid 1880s with the Prisons Department, and the Municipal and Territorial Police in Hobart, Tasmania. His work was considered so valuable to police that he was appointed full-time keeper to the Hobart Town Hall, which housed the Municipal Police Office, the central registry of criminal records, in January 1876.
This document bears the standard carte-de-visite format used by Nevin and other Australian prison photographers in the 1870s. Police records show that Allan Williamson was transferred to the Hobart Gaol in 1875 and released with a ticket-of- leave on 12th December 1877, the date on which Nevin registered his photograph. Williamson re-offended, was arraigned and incarcerated again at the Hobart Gaol on 24 July, 1878, and re-offended again and released on several occasions. He died in custody in 1893.
Nevin photographed Williamson again on this date at the Supreme Court, Hobart; his photograph of Sheeran who was arraigned in the same session is held at the Mitchell Library NSW (PXB 274).
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police
Nevin’s busiest years were 1873-1880 at the Municipal Police Office and Hobart Gaol, during the transfer of prisoners from the Port Arthur penitentiary on Tasman Peninsula to Hobart as the site there readied for closure (1874-77). However, the majority of cartes which now survive are not photographs of Port Arthur convicts who were photographed because they were transportees per se, nor were they photographed at Port Arthur; they were photographed for a central registry because they were either released with a ticket-of-leave (Town Hall), or they were recidivists and re-offenders photographed on arrest and arraigned (Supreme Court and Hobart Gaol). The weekly police gazettes of the day show a record for every single man in every single carte for these events. The cartes were therefore produced to accompany the central prison and police registers, and this is the most likely original source from which the loose cartes have been divorced. The prison administrator at Port Arthur on the isolated Tasman Peninsula until December 1873, A.H. Boyd, played no role in the taking of prisoner photographs for the Colonial government in Hobart.
Thomas Nevin was assisted by his younger brother Jack (William J. or John) Nevin who was a salaried employee at the Hobart Gaol during the years 1880-1884. The contract was issued by W.R. Giblin, variously Attorney-General and Premier, whose portrait Nevin took ca. 1874. The Giblin portrait by Nevin is held at the Archives Office of Tasmania; the Superintendent of Police, Richard Propsting at the Town Hall Office, the Sheriff John Swan, the Keeper Ringrose Atkins and Inspector of Police at the Hobart Gaol were the Nevin brothers’ supervisors.
The Williamson carte might have T. J. Nevin’s stamp on verso, but then again it may not, and for this reason: at least one duplicate of the carte was intended to be pasted to the prisoner’s record. More duplicates were made to be circulated to the police in the event of a warrant after the prisoner’s release. Why would a photographer waste ink and time printing every carte on verso when the verso would never be visible? These cartes were co-owned by the government AND the photographer contracted on tender to produce them. Primarily they were legal instruments stamped with the insignia similar to the seal of the Hobart Supreme Court where many were taken. Their primary function was police records, unlike Nevin’s other cartes of private citizens and those taken on commission, many of which bear his commercial stamps on verso or impressed on mount.
The second example is a loose copy bearing T. J. Nevin’s government contract stamp …
One of at least twelve extant cartes taken in 1875 which does bear T. J. Nevin’s studio stamp encircling the government insignia is of the convict “William Smith per Gilmore 3″. The original carte of Smith with the verso (below) is held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston. A copy is held at the Archives Office of Tasmania Ref: PH30/1/3244.
Recto and verso of convict Smith carte with Nevin’s studio stamp
Carte numbered “199″ on recto
QVMAG & AOT Ref: 30-3244
Why does this carte of Smith bear Nevin’s studio stamp? The question has been asked by photo historians with little consideration to the realities of government tender. It was one of several chosen by Nevin to access his commission, register copyright with the police office, and renew his contract under the terms of the tender. Only one was required per batch. There is nothing out of ordinary about this carte which would set it apart from the series – its framing, processing, pose, and number on mount are consistent with the entire batch of more than 300. It may have been the first carte in the batch for the year, the verso stamp being used to identify the photographer’s copyright .
Verso of convict carte of William Smith per Gilmore (3)
with T. J. Nevin’s stamp printed with the government insignia.
POLICE RECORDS for William Smith per Gilmore 3:
William Smith per Gilmore 3, discharged with TOL 10 September 1873, received from Port Arthur. Note that his age and physical measurements are not recorded at the Police Office because no photograph existed prior to his release. When Nevin photographed him on discharge in April 1875, Smith was dressed and ready for freedom. The photograph exhibits a degree of liminality of the prisoner’s state: free on a ticket of leave but classed as a criminal.
Click on images for readable version
Smith reoffended again in April 1874, and was discharged 12 months later.
Wm Smith discharged 1st April, 1875. Photographed on release by T. J. Nevin.
Suspicion attaches to William Smith per Gilmore 3, 23rd April, 1875
Wm Smith per Gilmore 3 Warrant for arrest 23 April 1875.
Thomas Nevin’s face-to-contact with William Smith while photographing him was used as an adjunct in the written description issued by police of Smith’s coming under suspicion for theft just three weeks after his release on 1st April, 1875. Smith was arrested 3 months later in July 1875.
William Smith arrested, notice of 9th July, 1875.
Thomas Nevin photographed William Smith again wearing a hat. This is a “booking photograph” taken on the prisoner’s arrest. His dress here signifies again a liminal state between TOL freedom and prison.
William Smith per Gilmore 3.
Photo by Thomas Nevin, July 1875
Stamped verso with Nevin’s government stamp
Mitchell Library NSW PXB 274 No.1
The first carte is numbered “199″. This, the second of William Smith is numbered “200″: the sequence of numbers is insignificant, whether transcribed from a police register, or whether devised by archivists in the 20th century.
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