Hobart Town from Lime Kiln Hill

STEREOGRAPHS of HOBART Tasmania from LIME KILN HILL
PHOTOGRAPHERS Thomas J. Nevin and Samuel Clifford

Samuel Clifford advertised in The Mercury, January 1876, that he had acquired the "interest" in Thomas J. Nevin's commercial photographs taken for private clients and would reprint them at request because between 1876 and 1880 Thomas Nevin was otherwise engaged in full-time civil service as the police and prisons photographer while also resident at the Hobart Town Hall as Hall and Office Keeper. But Nevin maintained his old New Town studio and worked with another commercial photographer, H.H. Baily, during his tenancy at the Town Hall (Mercury, December 1880) and on dismissal from the Keeper position in December 1880, he resumed commercial practice, bailiff duties and police photography for the Territorial and Municipal Police Forces at his New Town studio until 1888.

Clifford & Nevin appears as a handwritten inscription on the versos of several studio portraits in public and private collections, although their collaboration was principally in stereography, especially in the late 1860s. Several stereographs held at the State Library of Tasmania, loosely collated in "The Clifford Album", whether unattributed or which bear Clifford's stamp, are original photographs by Thomas Nevin produced during their partnership. Two bound albums in the same public collection entitled Tasmanian Scenes contain prints by Nevin of the Salmon Ponds and River Plenty etc.

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery holds a sizeable collection of Thomas Nevin's stereographs dating from ca. 1868. Nevin exhibited at the Wellington Park Exhibition in 1868, and at the Hobart Town Hall Bazaar in 1872. This stereograph titled Hobart from Lime Kiln Hill looking down Harrington Street carries his New Town studio stamp on verso, taken in the mid to late 1860s.

Hobart from Lime Kiln Hill looking down Harrington Street
Stereograph by Thomas Nevin ca. late 1860s-1870
New Town studio stamp on verso
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.30

Verso:
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Database Ref: Q1994.56.30
Description : Photograph, sepia salt paper stereoscope:
MAKER: Thomas Nevin [photographer];
TITLE: '[Hobart from Lime Kiln Hill looking down Harrington Street; St Mary's, Warwick Street, West Hobart]'
ITEM DATE: 1870s
IMAGE CONTENT: view townscape; .
Size : Mount buff coloured 85 x 173mm Images (2) 73 x 70mm [images rounded at top]
Inscriptions and marks : On back handwritten in pencil: a Pedder and stamped Thos Nevin/ Newtown

The verso of this stereograph at the TMAG is stamped with Thomas J. Nevin's most common New Town studio stamp and bears the name of A. Pedder, possibly Alfred Pedder, son of Superintendent of Police, Frederick Pedder (1841-1923), Nevin’s colleague at the Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall. Nevin's stereo view of St Mary's Cathedral, Hobart, and his stereo view from across the Huon River to the town known as Victoria are other examples taken on commission for Frederick Pedder which were passed into the hands of his son, solicitor Alfred Pedder (1881-1977). Inscribed with the name "Pedder" on the versos, Alfred Pedder's daughter Sylvia in turn may have donated these stereographs to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in the 1970s.

This one, however, a print from one of Thomas Nevin's views of Murray and Harrington Streets from Lime Kiln Hill, has survived in the family collections of his descendants:

Recto inscribed: "Old Hobart Town"
Photographer: Thomas Nevin 1873
View of Murray St (on left) and Harrington Street, with St Mary's Cathedral
Copyright © KLW NFC Group Private Collection 2020

Printed as a stereograph, it was sold as a commercial view with Samuel Clifford's imprint:

Harrington St from Lime Kiln Hill
Stereograph by Samuel Clifford (no date)
Ref: LPIC147-3-00124
Source: Archives Office Tasmania

Below are more examples by Clifford and/or Nevin taken from Lime Kiln Hill.

Carte de visite - Hobart from Lime Kiln Hill. Panorama no. 2.
ADRI: LPIC147-3-169 (no label or inscription)
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania

Album: Tasmanian Scenes, S. Clifford Photographer ca. 1868
Compilation album owned by the May family (TAHO).
These two views of Hobart from Lime Kiln Hill were commercial staples
Many of the photographs reproduced in this album were taken by Thomas J. Nevin, 1860s-1870s.
Photos copyright © KLW NFC 2011

This panorama is dated 1873, and unattributed.

State Library of Tasmania
Title: Hobart Town from Lime Kiln Hill
Photographer unknown.
Image size 93 x 507 mm.
Publisher: [ca. 1873]
ADRI:AUTAS001122922107
W.L. Crowther Library

"Hobart Town from the North West"
Samuel Clifford blind stamp impress on mount in first frame
Panorama taken from Lime Kiln Hill ca. 1870
This fold-out is held at the National Archives, UK, viewable at Flickr

State Library of Tasmania
Hobart Town from Lime Kiln Hill ca. 1868
Clifford, Samuel, 1827-1890
Stereograph in square mount on yellow card
Ref: AUTAS001125298893

RELATED POSTS main weblog

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.

Click here for KEY DATES 1842-1923

Try thumbnail SEARCHING here and

here BIOGRAPHICA thumbnail index

Important Notices

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 were built on the traditional lands, nipaluna 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 and Ngambri peoples, the traditional custodians of the Kamberri/Canberra region 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.

Our 19th Anniversary 2005-2024

Click on image for full list tagged "About women"

NINETEEN YEARS ago (before 2005 actually) we started blogging about Tasmanian photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923). We look forward to another year or so as the project draws closer to completion. Contributions and donations are most welcome, and many thanks for your involvement.

SABBATICAL 2023-24: We are taking a short break from regular posting through 2024 but will be available to answer queries.

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