Appearing late at night as a ghost

What was behind Thomas Nevin's escapade on the evening of December 2nd, 1880?

According to Joan Kerr's definitive entry in the Dictionary of Australian artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870 (1992:568), Thomas James Nevin was appointed to the position of keeper of the Hobart Town Hall in January 1876, and "despite a tendency to drink on duty", remained in the position for five years. But on December 3rd, 1880, he was dismissed from the position for being drunk. The previous evening he had been arrested for being "associated with (or was) a figure in phosphorescent clothing who had been terrorising local residents by appearing late at night as a ghost..."

The charge was dismissed for lack of evidence.

Entry on T. J. Nevin, G.T. Stilwell and Joan Kerr, p. 568-9:
Kerr, Joan (ed) The Dictionary of Australian artists : painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870
Melbourne : Oxford University Press, 1992.
Description: xxii, 889 p. : ill., facsims., ports. ; 27 cm

Read the full article here transcribed from the Mercury, December 4th 1880.

During the period when Thomas J. Nevin was most active as a commercial and police photographer (mid 1860s-1880s), the craze for seances, raising the dead and photographing the visits of the dearly departed - usually in the presence of an obliging trance medium - proved a lucrative activity for photographers.

Once having discovered that they could create doubles from positive photographic prints off glass negative plates, they could then "ghost" figures into the image. Phosphorescence was yet another chemical in the cupboard of the spirit photographers, and perhaps Thomas Nevin was out that night to mock a duped public and expose the tricks of the spiritualists.

Hobart photographers of the period may well have taken advantage of a gullible public, but none were as bold as William Mummler in Boston, and Frederick A. Hudson in England. In 1872, spiritualist and medium Georgina Houghton (1814-1884) claimed Hudson had achieved the first successful "spirit" photographs with herself as the subject.

The National Gallery of Australia holds a "spirit album" containing photos by Hudson of Georgina Houghton, plus the Australian spiritualist William H. Terry (1836-1913). The album contains 36 albumen silver cartes de visite ca. 1871-76 by various photographers, ten of which contain images of "spirits". The provenance was probably via The Josef Lebovic Gallery, originating from a Mosman NSW family with links to the Theosophical Movement.

Mrs Houghton and Spirit of her Aunt, May 9 1872
Frederick A. Hudson, United Kingdom 1818 - 1889
National Gallery of Australia
Link: https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/object/143371

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IN HIS OWN WORDS...

"T. J. NEVIN
PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST,
Returns his sincere thanks to his friends and the public for past favours, and having made a considerable Reduction in his Prices to suit the times, he solicits a continuance of their patronage, and invites attention to his circulars, showing particulars of the small cost for a first-class faithful Likeness.
140 ELIZABETH-STREET"
Hobart Mercury, 1st February 1873

“I hope that you have not got it in your mind that I am implicated with the ghost“.
Hobart Mercury, 4 December 1880

"Defendant said that he was the father of a large number of children, and did not know which one was referred to. (Laughter.)"
Hobart Mercury, 11 August 1886

"Mr. Thos Nevin was under the impression that the police should be under stricter supervision."
Hobart Mercury, 19 July 1888.

BIOGRAPHY: professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced large numbers of stereographs and cartes-de-visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Switzerland.

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INDIGENOUS NOTICE:
lutruwita/Tasmania/Van Diemen's Land (loo-tru-wee-ta) always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

This weblog pays respect to the ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging of the first Australian peoples and acknowledges their continued connection to land, sea and culture as the traditional custodians of this country.

Irish-born Thomas J. Nevin would have been keenly aware that the residence and photographic studio he occupied at No's 138-140 Elizabeth St. Hobart in the 1870s was built on the traditional lands, nipaluna/Hobart, of the palawa people. It is no small irony that today, the very same property, which is renumbered as No. 198 Elizabeth St. Hobart and is occupied by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, has returned to its traditional owners.

Looking east from the corner of Patrick St., the Royal Standard Hotel, 142 Elizabeth St. then T. J. Nevin’s studio and residence, 140-138 Elizabeth St. Hobart, 1870s

We also acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the City of Sydney, and the Ngunnawal people of the Australian Capital Territory on whose lands this site is maintained.

PLEASE NOTE: images on this weblog represent deceased people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Viewing such images may cause sadness and distress.

DISCLAIMER: We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of T. J. Nevin's prisoner/convict photographs (300+ extant) to the non-photographer A. H. Boyd, nor do we condone any attempts by public institutions or private individuals to co-opt the work on these Thomas J. Nevin weblogs and associated sites to apply the misattribution.

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Anthony Trollope at Port Arthur

Thomas Nevin's VIP commission 1872

VISIT TO PORT ARTHUR.- Mr. Trollope and the Hon. Howard Spensly, Esq., Solicitor-General of Victoria, accompanied the Hon. the Premier, J.M. Wilson, Esq., and the Hon. the Attorney-General, W.R. Giblin, Esq., embarked in the Government schooner late last night, some time after Mr. Trollope had concluded his lecture on "Modern Fiction, as a recreation for young people," and left for Port Arthur. Their visit to the Peninsula will be a very hurried one, and will afford them only scant opportunity of inspecting the penal establishment, it being the intention of Messrs. Trollope and Spensly to leave Hobart Town for the North, en route for Victoria in a few days ...

Source: The Mercury 2 February 1872