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 6 photos.
THE ODD FELLOWS’ HALL – A very fine photograph of the Odd Fellows’ Hall (corner of Davey and Harrington-streets) has been taken for the Society by Mr. Nevin, of Elizabeth-street. The view is taken from Davey-street, opposite the corner of the Freemasons’ Hotel, and thus shows the entrance to the rooms, with the whole front and side of the buildings. A well-known member of the institution, and a less known youth, have come within the range of the camera, and their presence greatly assists in conveying an idea of the dimensions of the hall. The picture is undoubtedly creditable to the artist. Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
The eight rioters “were charged with riotously injuring a building”, “riotously injuring the Town Hall” and specifically – “the breaking open of the ante-room of the Town Hall” . The charges would have incurred a severe penal code punishment of seven years’ imprisonment and a trial at the Supreme Court. However, Attorney-General Giblin sought to substitute the charge with the lesser one of disturbing the peace, and at this sitting, reported in The Mercury on 11th July 1879, the charges were withdrawn entirely because of Giblin’s concern with excessive costs involved in such a trial.
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 2 photos.
Thomas Nevin had extensive experience working with police by 1881, both as the designated photographer of prisoners for the Municipal Police Office and Prisons Dept,and as a Special Constable. He no doubt assumed he had some authority and rank over constables on the beat. When approached by Constable Beard, he not only challenged the constable, he told Beard to “move on.” Continue reading
This gallery contains 26 photos.
Seven (7) previously unpublished photographs by Thomas J.Nevin or pertaining to Thomas J. Nevin’s photography from the 1870s were scanned and submitted to this weblog by private collector Liam Peters in December 2010. The brief descriptions below of each item will be expanded into an article for each photograph within the next few months. Continue reading
This gallery contains 6 photos.
The research we have provided on these weblogs since 2003 about the police work of professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin in Tasmania during the 1870s and the mugshots he produced has stimulated and inspired a global reading public. If you are curious enough to pursue your own detective work regarding the prisoner’s identity in this handful of the few remaining mugshots yet to be documented (see below), take advice from researcher Peter Doyle. In his latest publication of mugshots from the NSW Justice and Police Museum , Crooks Like Us (2009), Doyle states that the police gazettes were the first he consulted and the most reliable source of information (p.312). The equivalent Tasmanian police gazettes are available as searchable CDs (from Gould’s) and are also online at the Archives Office of Tasmania (although not as easily searchable). 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 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 9 photos.
In 1884, the Colonial Government of Tasmania changed the name of its weekly police gazette from Tasmania Reports of Crime For Police Information (and the alternative – Information for Police) which was published by the government printer James Barnard dating back to its first appearance in 1861 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 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
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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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