Thomas J. Nevin | Tasmanian Photographer: Thomas Nevin's hand-coloured convict photographs

Professional photographers in the mid 19th century experimented with colouring photographs, sometimes to the displeasure of their regular clientele. Mrs Esther Mather expressed a distaste for the colouring of a portrait taken of her brother ca 1865 at SMITH'S, and it was Smith who joined Thomas Nevin soon afterwards at the City Photographic Establishment, forming the business partnership "Nevin & Smith". See for example, their portrait of Nevin's sister-in-law, Mary Sophia Day, ca 1870. Thomas Nevin’s family cartes of his sister Mary Anne Nevin, his wife Elizabeth Rachel Day, and his own police ID self-portrait, have survived in excellent condition in the Nevin family’s collections. They are all hand coloured, and so are several included here from private collections.

Nevin's reputation as a photographer and colorist or "photographic artist" was so well established that it warranted a mention in a report appearing in The Mercury, December 4th, 1880.

"ORNAMENTS of DIFFERENT COLOURS ..."

On the evening of December 3rd, 1880, Thomas Nevin was apprehended by two policemen who were chasing a man pretending to be ghost. Nevin was detained by police because he was (a) in the close vicinity of the man when the incident occurred, and (b) he was allegedly intoxicated while still on duty as keeper of the Hobart Town Hall. Although not charged with the offence of acting in concert with the “ghost”, he was dismissed from his position of Town Hall keeper for being intoxicated while on duty. The Mercury next day reported the court proceedings, which began with Nevin’s defense by the Mayor:

By the MAYOR: … It was not true that between the hours of 10 and 11 o’clock on Thursday night, Constables Oakes and Priest took witness home in a state of intoxication. Witness had a photographic apparatus and chemicals in his possession. He had not made any ornaments of different colours for any one lately. He was not at any time on Thursday night under the influence of liquor. He did not think it was right to leave the Town Hall for so many hours as he had. He considered, however, that when he heard the constables’ whistle he was justified in going to render them assistance.

The reader of the report learns that the “witness” - Nevin - who had spent the evening with photographer and friend Henry Hall Baily was on his way home to the Hobart Town Hall in the possession of photographic equipment and chemicals. This account clearly indicates that Nevin was still engaged in professional photographic practice with commercial photographer H. H. Baily in 1880 while duty-bound by his contract to render police any assistance.

Additional details in his defense underscore his reputation for producing coloured photographs - “ornaments of different colours” - although not for “anyone” lately. What might this mean? It most likely refers to these two prisoners and their ID photographs taken by Nevin during the first phase of his commission to provide criminal identification photographs for the Municipal Police Office, located at the Hobart Town Hall. His police work from 1873 had extended from the prison at Port Arthur and Hobart Gaol to rendering assistance to the New Town Territorial Police which was noted in the police gazettes.

The detaining detective Connor did not arrest Nevin that night in December 1880 because he was well-known to him, as Connor states in the account. Jack Nevin, Thomas' younger brother, was also well-known to police for his collaboration with Thomas while employed on salary at the Hobart Gaol. The Nevin brothers enjoyed a privileged relation with the former Attorney General Giblin, then Premier, whose contractual arrangements gave Nevin the commission of prison photographer at the Port Arthur prison and Hobart Gaol from 1873 to the mid 1880s. Nevin’s coloured carte of W.R. Giblin is held at the Archives Office of Tasmania.

JOB SMITH aka WILLIAM CAMPBELL

NLA Collection:
nla.pic-vn4270353

The fate of Job Smith aka William Campbell was a cause celebre for opponents of capital punishment in the press when Job Smith was hanged for rape in June 1875. Nevin had travelled with William Campbell aka Job Smith back to Port Arthur a year earlier, in May 1874, for the completion of Smith's sentence there during Dr Coverdale's tenure as Commandant, and would have been responsible for taking Smith's photograph prior to leaving Hobart. Smith was not considered physically dangerous. He had been sentenced to 8 years, free in servitude, on 19th March 1872 for forgery. Smith's next sentence of death for rape in 1875 must have come as a shock to Nevin.

The convict in the image identified as William Campbell in this carte from the NLA Collection of portraits by Nevin is the same convict hanged as Job Smith at the Hobart Gaol for rape in May 1875. The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery holds an identical image of this convict, with this simple note written on the verso:

Job Smith Alias Campbell Alias Boodle

See this entry for an extended account of Job Smith's execution and the newspaper reports of the day.

JOHNSTONE aka BRAMALL aka TAYLOR

NLA Catalogue

nla.pic-vn4270353

In the carte of Job Smith aka William Campbell (top), Nevin has coloured the neckerchief blue to reflect reality, as in this example of a typical neckerchief worn by convicts (QVMAG Collection):

In the carte of Walter Johnson aka Bramall (sic, below), however, there IS no neckerchief. He is not wearing one at all underneath his collar, so the blueish colouring we can see is actually just paint patterned in squares to look like the standard issue neckerchief. This is a telling detail, and would have been added by Nevin to the print he made of an earlier photograph he took of Bramall to underscore the fact that the man was in effect a prisoner who had asbconded in prison clothing. The eyes of this man have intense blue colouring as well. The reason for the colour was not to render a pretty picture; it was to aid the public's recognition of him. The carte would have been displayed at the Town Hall Police Office, and most likely exhibited in Nevin's studio window at 140 Elizabeth St, Hobart Town. It would have been available to the public, on sale, since Johnstone alias Bramall alias Taylor absconded from the Cascades area of Hobart on June 6th, 1874, and appears to have succeeded in remaining at large, as his recapture was not recorded during 1875.

This notice appeared in the police gazette:

Source: Tasmania Reports on Crime for Police Information Feb 6, 1874

There is a lot of detail in the written description concerning colour: sallow complexion, light brown hair, light brown eyebrows, large blue eyes, grey prison clothing. Nevin's colouring has attempted to match the verbal description. The question then arises: who wrote the description in the police gazette of February 6th, 1874? In all probability it was the photographer, Thomas Nevin, as no one other than the photographer would have noticed such detail and attempted to render it visually.

So, it was with these two prisoner cartes in mind when Nevin's defense by the Mayor stated - He had not made any ornaments of different colours for any one lately. He was not at any time on Thursday night under the influence of liquor.

The statement is not without derision towards a commercial photographer employed as a police photographer, and Nevin was both, who prettied up criminals' mugshots with artistic colour and used the term "artist" in the wording "T. J. Nevin Photographic Artist" on his studio stamp bearing the government insignia. Again, these are resonances of a social prejudice about photographers, and against the use of colour which Mrs Mather expressed in the 1860s. As for the drinking, also a signifier of artistic tendencies perhaps, the statement might contain the innuendo that only a drunk would engage in colouring mugshots. Nevin may have taken to drink to overcome his horror at Job Smith's hanging, and again in remorse because Bramall managed to elude capture (or something worse)..

NLA's POOR DIGITISATION

The National Library of Australia recently digitised both cartes, which are listed there in Thomas Nevin's file as hand-coloured. However, the recent digitisation of these two, and of fifty or more of their total collection of 80 photographs of Tasmanian prisoners is of very poor quality. Compare the auto-adjustment made here that was necessary to bring out the colouring with their originals at NLA (click on name below image). The original twenty-three convicts' photographs which the NLA digitised and attributed solely to Thomas Nevin ca 2000 were of exceptionally good quality. The NLA has shown poor judgment as well in resurrecting the A.H. Boyd misattribution in the form of a catalogue entry accompanying these convicts' photographs with reference to a worthless, sycophantic and intellectually dishonest "essay" by an employee of the PAHSMA.

These two are supposedly inscribed on verso "Taken at Port Arthur, 1874" though this may be just an effect of a batch edit by an archivist in the 1920s, or by the NLA ca 1995.

Two hand coloured cartes of convicts by Thomas Nevin, NLA Collection

Left: nla.pic-vn4270353
William Campbell, per S. [Sir] R. [Robert] Peel, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture] 1874. 1 photograph on carte-de-visite mount : albumen, hand col. ; 9.4 x 5.6 cm., on mount 10.4 x 6.4 cm.

Right: nla.pic-vn4270027
Walter Johnson, alias Henry Bramall, per Asiatic, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture] 1874. 1 photograph on carte-de-visite mount : albumen ; 9.4 x 5.6 cm. on mount 10.5 x 6.3 cm

The originals ...