By February 1874, A. H. Boyd, James Boyd's successor to the position of Civil Commandant at Port Arthur in 1871 was also absent from the post, forced to resign under suspicion of corruption. Both Commandants by the name of Boyd (presumed to be unrelated) were therefore well and truly absent when Thomas Nevin was engaged at Port Arthur by and before May 1874, at the behest of the penal site's new Commandant, Dr Coverdale. Contracted by the Attorney-General W.R. Giblin, and supervised by MPO Superintendent R. Propsting, Nevin's job was to update the central city police registers by checking and matching old convict transportation records (current to 1853) held at Port Arthur against the records held at the Town Hall Municipal Police Office of the aliases and the photographs of repeat offenders which Nevin had taken of prisoners received from the penal site at the Hobart Gaol, Campbell-street.
Above: the barque Ethel moored at New Wharf, Hobart
Unattributed n.d. Private Collection.
Click on for readable version
Above: The Mercury 8 May 1874
Extract from mail received from the Royal Colonial Institute
TRANSCRIPT
"... through the exertions of the corresponding secretary of the Institute in Tasmania - Mr Hugh Munro Hull - a valuable contribution to the museum has been despatched from that colony, consisting of specimens of its coal ...
....
"It will be remembered that Mr. and Mrs. Boyd, late Commandant of Port Arthur, were passengers by the Ethel."
The year 1874 was a busy one for Thomas Nevin. He was engaged under contract to the Municipal Police Office and Prisons Department to provide mugshots of prisoners received at the Hobart Gaol for the MPO registers and gazette at the Town Hall, while continuing to operate full-time as a commercial photographer from his studio at 140 Elizabeth-Street in Hobart. His second child, Thomas James "Sonny" Nevin, was born on 16th April 1874. His membership of the Loyal United Brothers' Lodge annual Anniversary Ball committee entailed the provision of photographic services on the night of the ball, and extended to placing advertisements in The Mercury to procure professional services for Lodge members and their family, including medical services. And he worked closely with the printers at the Hobart newspaper offices of The Mercury, producing miniature photographs of the front pages for sale as visiting cards (measuring 3 inches x 2 inches).
Thomas Nevin was also a city agent for coal deliveries from Mr Sim's coal mine, located near his parents' family home at Kangaroo Valley New Town (also known as Kangaroo Bottom). His family, including his parents, were stakeholders in the coal business, and probably shareholders in several other profitable businesses, since Thomas Nevin, unlike several other members of his photographers' cohort in Tasmania and Victoria, escaped bankruptcy when they didn't (e.g. Alfred Bock, George Cherry, Stephen Spurling, Harold Riise, and Charles Nettleton in Victoria etc), and managed to keep his wife and children (six survived to adulthood) in comfortable circumstances.
Mr Nevin, photographer, Elizabeth-street, appears in this advertisement as an agent able to take orders for the delivery of coal from the Excelsior Coal Mine which was located on Mr Ebenezer Sims property at Kangaroo Bottom (Kangaroo Valley New Town), in close proximity to the home of Nevin's parents. This coal was for domestic use but may have been included in the coal specimens which were exported to the Royal Colonial Institute, accompanied by James Boyd on board the Ethel in 1874.
The Mercury, 22 December 1874
COALS! DOMESTIC COALS!
"ORDERS will be received by the undermentioned persons:-
...
Mr Nevin, photographer, Elizabeth-street ..."
Mr Ebenezer Sims' coal mines and other property at Kangaroo Bottom had been advertised for sale earlier, in January 1874, and the "late Mr E. Sims" was presumably dead. However, the Excelsior Coal Mine continued to operate on his property and in his name, together with the stakeholders and agents listed in the advertisement with Nevin's name:
The Mercury 23 January 1874
Above: FOR SALE
Auction advertisement for the sale of the late Mr E. Sim's coal mines leased to Mr H. Stops at Kangaroo Bottom.
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The Mercury 23 December 1883:
"Mr Ebenezer Sim's coal mine ... is wrought by means of a horse-whim ..."
A lengthy geological report was published in The Mercury, 23 December 1883, on the coal mines and seams around Mt Wellington, including a description of the methods of mining at Mr Ebenezer Sim's Excelsior Coal Mine and an account of the formation of anthracite, shale and sandstone in the Kangaroo Valley area.
