It is likely that the man photographed here standing on Thomas Nevin’s carpet was William Graves, and that Nevin photographed him in May 1875. This may not be the only photograph of William Graves taken by Nevin. There may have been a standard half-body vignette printed as well to attach to Grave’s crime sheet. But such a standard carte is not extant, and there may be a reason why none ever existed.
ARCHIVES OFFICE of TASMANIA
Reference: PH30/1/221
Title: Brother Payne [sic]
Subject: people, portraits
Locality: not identified
Date: 1880
PAUPERS
Although the AOT calls this man Payne, he is not the same man identified as “Brother Payne” in the images below. He is likely to be a pauper, arrested as William Graves.
Nevin may have photographed this man who was his probable captive William Graves using this full-length shot because Graves was not going to be imprisoned at the Hobart Gaol; he was going to another receiving depot, one for paupers such as the Brickfields Depot in Hobart or even the Lunatic Asylum. And because Graves was “well-known in the Glenorchy district” possibly due to his mental and physical state, and because Nevin took an active role in the detective work, the occasion warranted a studio portrait.Who would have paid for such a studio photo? Not the poor man himself. It is likely to be a Nevin souvenir of the event.
Very few prisoner ID photographs currently in existence by Nevin are of paupers; none exist at all of all those who had been transferred by late1873 from Port Arthur to Hobart, because the police did not think a photograph of a pauper per se was necessary without a further conviction (see William Lee’s record below). Thomas Nevin’s police photographs in standard vignette carte-de-visite format, printed from his glass negative, ALL depict criminals who re-offended, were arrested on warrant, and/or discharged: they were recidivists and habitual offenders, for the most part. Their mugshots were taken because of these reasons, per police regulations of the day, and for the same reasons that mugshots are taken today of those when “booked” and released. William Graves may have been too decrepit, too ill or too non compis mentis to be incarcerated in a gaol.
The police gazette described Graves in these terms:
About 60 years of age, about 5 feet 5 inches high, lame of right leg, walks with a crutch. Well known in Glenorchy district.
POLICE RECORDS for William Graves
Warrant for William Graves’ arrest, published 19th March 1875
William Graves was arrested by the New Town Territorial Police with assistance from Thomas Nevin on 21st May 1875.
Graves was in fact tried and detained at New Norfolk because the Lunatic Asylum was located there.
William Graves, aged 65, tried at New Norfolk, sentenced to one month for being found in a dwelling house, left leg crippled, discharged 23 June, 1875. BDM records show that he was born in 1810 and died in 1893, aged 83, at the New Town Charitable Institution. He was buried at Cornelian Bay cemetery (records courtesy of Graves of Tasmania website).
Another pauper photographed by Nevin was William Lee, transported per Neptune, 78 years old in 1872 when he was convicted for being idle and disorderly in August, then discharged as a prisoner from the Brickfields Depot in Hobart on 1st October, 1873, and therafter discharged as a pauper in 1874 and 1875. The paper reprint here is from a lantern slide reproduction by John Watt Beattie ca 1900 of Nevin’s original glass negative, cunningly labelled with “Port Arthur” to attract the tourist.
National Library of Australia Catalogue
Part of the collection of photographs compiled by Australian photographer E. W. Searle while working for J. W. Beattie in Hobart during 1911-1915.
On the photograph held, the image including the name of the subject appears in reverse.”Official Prison Photographs from Port Arthur” and “Types of Convicts”–Inscription on page of album, below photograph.
Subject Lee, William
POLICE RECORDS for William Lee
William Lee per Neptune, aged 78 years, last tried August 1872 for being idle and disorderly, discharged on 1st October 1873 from the Brickfields Depot, Hobart.
William Lee, pauper, discharged from Brickfields Depot, Hobart 12 September 1874
William Lee, pauper, discharged 29 January 1875
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1871-1875. James Barnard Government Printer.
With the intense promotion of Tasmania’s penal heritage in the early 1900s, due largely to the release of the film based on Marcus Clarke’s 1874 novel, For The Term of His Natural Life (1908, 22 minutes), many Tasmanian prisoner ID photographs taken by Thomas Nevin on government contract to police and prison authorities in the 1870s were removed from the police registers and reprinted by John Watt Beattie and Edward Searle for sale as tourist tokens in Beattie’s convictaria museum in the 1900s which he called The Port Arthur Museum, although it was located in Hobart and not at Port Arthur. Some of Beattie and Searle’s reprints were sold in albums as “Types of Convicts – Official Prison Photographs from Port Arthur“, such as this one of convict William Lee, held at the National Library of Australia. Presumably Searle or Beattie wrrote the caption on the album leaf – ” Official Prison photographs from Port Arthur” – to hype the transportation and penal heritage of both his museum objects, which were for sale, and of the State’s history. Just as he hyped his “Port Arthur” Museum with the “Port Arthur” label, despite its location in Hobart because the label guarranteed sales, he has hyped this photo of William Lee with the label “Port Arthur”. The very ordinary facts of Lee’s life as a prisoner and pauper in a city depot would not have played on the tourist’s simultaneous feelings of fascination and repulsion of the State’s history.
BROTHER PAYNE
ARCHIVES OFFICE of TASMANIA
Reference: PH30/1/221
Title: Brother Payne
Subject: people, portraits
Locality: not identified
Date: 1880
Since the man photographed here is standing on the very same carpet that appears in Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin’s wedding photograph, dated to 12th July 1871, he cannot be the same man identified as Brother Payne in other photographs held at AOT which are unattributed and are dated 1880-1900. For example:
Click on images for large view
Reference: NS1013/1/1279
Title: Payne, Knife Grinder
Subject: grinding wheels, men, men’s clothing
Locality: not identified
This same image was catalogued again at the AOT with the date “1900″:
Reference: PH30/1/744
Title: Knife grinder
Subject: people
Locality: Tasmania
Date: 1900
Reference: NS1013/1/1278
Title: Payne, Knife Grinder
Subject: machinery, men, men’s clothing
Locality: not identified
Reference: PH30/1/220
Title: ‘Brother Payne’
Subject: people, portraits
Locality: not identified
Date: 1880
NEVIN’s CARPET
Although Nevin used several types of carpet in different studio locales, the carpet on which the pauper stands appears again in all of these cartes, and the address of the studio stamps on verso is his principal business address, “140 Elizabeth St, Hobart Town“. The pattern on the carpet is lozenge or diamond squares alternating with chain links, the oblong ends providing depth and perspective.
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| From A selection from the weblogs for Thomas J. Nevin |
Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin’s wedding photo, July 1871
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| From A selection from the weblogs for Thomas J. Nevin |
Thomas Nevin’s father, John Nevin, ca. 1874
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| From A selection from the weblogs for Thomas J. Nevin |
Tinted flowers on table, hatless seated woman, ca. 1872 from the Harrisson Collection.
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| From A selection from the weblogs for Thomas J. Nevin |
This carte of a seated woman, unidentified, with handbag, umbrella and hat ca 1871 is from The Marcel Safier Collection.
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| From A selection from the weblogs for Thomas J. Nevin |
The same carpet also appears in the Nevin photograph of a young man standing next to a stereoscope which bears on the verso his “T.J. Nevin” studio stamp with the government insignia, dated ca. 1874, from The McCullagh Collection.
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