This gallery contains 8 photos.
George Willis, aged 48 yrs, and originally transported in 1838, was convicted in the Supreme Court at Hobart on 10th September 1872, sentenced to six years for larceny, sent to the Port Arthur prison, and then relocated to the Hobart Gaol in October 1873 where he was photographed by T.J. Nevin on incarceration. Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
Although catalogued as a “portrait” of a “Port Arthur convict”, it is simply a mugshot – one of thousands taken for the Municipal Police Office at the Hobart Gaol, the Supreme Court and MPO by professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin between 1872 and 1886. He took this photograph at the Hobart Gaol when John Sullivan was tried in the Supreme Court Hobart on 18th August 1875 on a charge of larceny and sentenced to incarceration at the Hobart Gaol for a period of twelve (12) months, Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Video excerpt from: ABC TV (Aust) news report by Siobhan Heanue, 2 April 2011. NB: this report contains unfactual and erroneous statements by both the journalist and interviewee. For AUTHENTIC and ACCURATE research see this article which reviews the NLA … Continue reading
This gallery contains 10 photos.
Edward Wallace aka Timothy Donovan was a transported felon, arriving in Hobart from Dublin on board the Blenheim (2), on February 2nd, 1849. He became an habitual offender. His photograph is held at the Mitchell Library Sydney, SLNSW, in a box of nine cartes-de-visite of prisoners taken by Thomas J. Nevin at the Hobart Gaol. The collection was bequeathed by David Scott Mitchell to the State Library of NSW ca 1907 (PXB 274). The Mitchell Library has catalogued all these nine photographs with the date “1878″; however, two of the photographs were taken by Nevin in 1875 (those of Mullins and Smith), and this one, of Edward Wallace was more likely to have been taken by Nevin in 1872 or early 1873, when Wallace was re-arrested for absconding from the Hobart Gaol. Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Further refining the time span when photography was introduced as a means of police surveillance, from 1871 to 1875, the total number of persons convicted in the Superior Courts totalled three hundred and forty-three (343). This last group was photographed by Nevin from the start of his commission as a commercial photographer under government contract. Most of the photographs he took of males in this last group, between 1871 and 1875, survive in public collections today for TWO principal reasons: Continue reading
This gallery contains 10 photos.
Who were they? They were T.J. Nevin’s sitters for police records, mostly “Supreme Court men” photographed on committal for trial at the Supreme Court adjoining the Hobart Gaol when they were isolated in silence for a month after sentencing. If sentenced for a long term at the Supreme Court Launceston, they were photographed, bathed, shaved and dressed on being received in Hobart. These procedures, past and present, were reported at length by a visitor to the Hobart Gaol and Supreme Court in The Mercury, 8th July 1882 … Continue reading
This gallery contains 18 photos.
The Nevin brothers, Thomas (T. J. Nevin, 1842-1923) and John (W. J. Nevin, 1852-1891) served the Police and Prisons Departments of the Tasmanian government from the late 1860s to the late 1880s. Thomas was contracted as prisons and police photographer … Continue reading
This gallery contains 2 photos.
Samuel Paul was probably photographed twice, first on his incarceration at the Hobart Gaol as soon as Thomas J. Nevin began the systematic documentation of prisoners in 1871, and again by Nevin at the Hobart Gaol on the prisoner’s release, 20 March 1878. The original verso has a transcription added at some time in the 1900s by archivists with the error in time and date of photographic capture. Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
THOMAS NEVIN’S ELEVEN The Mitchell Library at the State Library of NSW has catalogued eleven prisoner photographs so far which were taken by Thomas Nevin and his younger brother Jack Nevin at the Hobart Gaol between 1875 and 1884. All … Continue reading
This gallery contains 16 photos.
Between 1876 and 1884, transitional years in the history of 19th century prison photography, changes took place in the way Jack and Thomas Nevin posed the prisoner and and printed the final carte-de-visite. The technology changed too. Lenses after 1875 enabled a closer or larger image of the face. The prisoner was also posed closer to the camera in a full frontal position facing the photographer, and although the oval vignette was still the preferred format for printing, square frames were also used. The formalised front and profile pair of portraits using the methods of Bertillonage did not appear in Tasmanian prison photography until the late 1890s, by which time both Nevin brothers had ceased professional photography. Continue reading
This gallery contains 9 photos.
From the David Scott Mitchell Collection, 1907 … Photography © KLW NFC 2009 ARR. Above: Detail of Nevin’s carte of condemned prisoner James Sutherland with the blue hand-tinted scarf intended to reflect reality, one of several extant hand-tinted prisoner mugshots … Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
Job Smith was either photographed by Thomas Nevin when Campbell was one of sixty prisoners who had transferred to the Hobart Gaol and were assigned before July 1873 (see W.R. Giblin’s and the Inspector of Police reportof convicts tabled in the Parliament on July 17th, 1873), or just before William Campbell was returned to Port Arthur on May 8th, 1874 to complete his 8 year sentence, accompanied by Thomas Nevin in his role as police agent and photographer. Both were listed as passengers on the schooner Harriet’s way bill. Continue reading
This gallery contains 2 photos.
Younger brother Jack Nevin … William John Nevin (1852-1891) was known to the family as Jack. He was less than six months old when he arrived in Hobart, Tasmania with his parents and siblings Thomas and Mary Anne on board … Continue reading
This gallery contains 14 photos.
More than 3000 Tasmanian prisoner identification photographs (mugshots) were taken by the brothers Thomas and (Constable) John (Jack) Nevin between 1872 and 1884. T. J. Nevin, 9 convicts photographs Mitchell Library NSW (PXB 274) Photo KLW NFC 2009 Arr Most … Continue reading
This gallery contains 22 photos.
Emanuel Blore and Job Smith aka William Campbell From the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Reproduced from page 36 of Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940: A Directory (TMAG 1995) Photo © KLW NFC 2008 ARR Click on image for large view … Continue reading
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Thomas J. Nevin | Tasmanian photographer (1842-1923) by The Nevin Family Collections & KLW NFC Imprint is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Australia License.
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