T.R. Williams’ stereographs taken of scenes in an English village in the 1850s (“Scenes in Our Village”) have been reproduced by Brian May and Elena Vidal in a superb publication, “A Village Lost and Found” . The book comes in a slip case that includes a stereoscopic viewer invented by Brian May “which makes the magic happen”. Continue reading
Portrait of Laura Blanche McVilly. and two other children. Held in McVilly, Richard William, 1862?-1949 :Photograph albums and a group portrait. Ref: PA2-1198. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. 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 20 photos.
Thomas FRANCIS was discharged from Port Arthur, per the first notice in the police gazette dated 4th February, 1874. Note that no physical details were recorded on 4th February 1874 because he had not yet been photographed. A second notice appeared in the police gazette one week later, dated 6th February 1874, which included his age – 62 yrs, height – 5’5" – colour of hair – "brown" and distinguishing marks, eg. bullet mark on left leg, bayonet mark on thumb, scar on chin. These details were written and recorded when Thomas J. NEVIN photographed Thomas FRANCIS on that date – 6th February 1874 – at the Office of Inspector of Police, Hobart Town Hall. Continue reading
This gallery contains 14 photos.
This Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery notice about their photographic collections appeared in November 2006. It is now September 2010, and the promised website with viewable databases of their vast photographic holdings is still not up and running. The TMAG holds a sizable collection of rare works by Thomas J. Nevin. Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
“… portraits of prisoners taken in the dock …” THOMAS BOCK Police artists worked in the Supreme Court of Tasmania from as early as 1824. An album of portraits of “prisoners taken in the dock” (Dunbar, QVMAG catalogue 1991:25) by … 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 11 photos.
Samuel Page held the government contracts for the Royal Mail coach deliveries between Hobart and Launceston, and contracted Nevin for photographic advertisements of his coachline. Samuel Page lived at Belle Vue, New Town, a villa with stables, paddocks and gardens. He transported prisoners under government contract from regional stations and courts to be “received” at H.M. Gaol, Hobart, accompanied by constables. Continue reading
This gallery contains 7 photos.
If A.H. Boyd were alive today, he would be very surprised indeed to read that he was the photographer of the extant Tasmanian prisoners’ photographs from the 1870s-80s we currently hold in public and private collections. Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
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). Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
On February 2, 1872 Thomas J. Nevin placed an advertisement in The Mercury informing the public and visitors (tourists) that his photographs, taken on a Colonists’ Trip down the River Derwent to Adventure Bay on the eastern side of Bruny Island, were ready and for sale. Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
Vernacular photographies are anything that is not used as “art” … Thomas J. Nevin began his photographic career in the mid 1860s within the urban free-settler society of a British penal colony: Hobart Tasmania. His apprenticeships were served with the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 14 photos.
The root of the notion that A.H. Boyd had any relationship with photography arose from this children’s story forwarded to the Crowther Collection at the State Library of Tasmania in 1942 by its author, Edith Hall. It was NEVER published, and exists only as a typed story, called “The Young Explorer.” Edith Hall claimed in an accompanying letter, dated 1942 and addressed to Dr Crowther that a man she calls the “Chief” in the story was her uncle A.H. Boyd, and that he was “always on the lookout for sitters”. Hopeful Chief! The imaginative Edith and her description of a room where the child protagonist was photographed (and rewarded for it) hardly accords with a set-up for police photography. The photographing of prisoners IS NOT mentioned in either the story or the letter by Edith Hall. In the context of the whole story, only three pages in length, the reference to photography is just another in a long list of imaginative fictions (many about clothes and servants) intended to give the child reader a “taste” of old Port Arthur, when both the author and her readers by 1942 were at a considerable remove in time. Boyd is not mentioned by name in the story, yet Reeder 1995 (after Long, 1995) and Clark (2010) actually cite this piece of fiction as if it contains statements of factual information. A.H. Boyd has never been documented in newspapers or validated in any government record of the day as either an amateur or official photographer. Continue reading
This gallery contains 5 photos.
On the day fixed for his departure from Tasmania, 18th January 1868, H.R.H Prince Alfred was presented with an album of photographs.The album contained “eighty three photographs illustrative of the scenery of Tasmania, forty eight portraits of children born in the colony, and nine plates immediately connected with the Prince’s visit” according to the report of the visit written by John George Knight … Continue reading
This gallery contains 25 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
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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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