Alfred BOCK: sketches of deceased infants 1864
Thomas J. NEVIN: a cdv portrait in the Memento Mori tradition ca. 1874
Detail of T. J. Nevin's full-length photograph of a woman with a deceased (or sleeping?) infant ca. 1874
It is a nostalgic time right now, and photographs actively promote nostalgia. Photography is an elegiac art, a twilight art. Most subjects photographed are, just by virtue of being photographed, touched with pathos. An ugly or grotesque subject may be moving because it has been dignified by the attention of the photographer. A beautiful subject can be the object of rueful feelings, because it has aged or decayed or no longer exists. All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.
From Susan, Sontag, On Photography, 1977, p.15
https://files.eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4233/2013/10/16022523/Sontag-On-Photography.pdf
Infant mortality and Tasmanian salubrity
TRANSCRIPT
THE healthiness of Tasmania is a subject of frequent comment,: and in the summer time especially this island is a great resort for persons from the other colonies in search of health or relaxation. We commend the following facts published in the Australasian, a weekly Melbourne paper, to the attention of intending emigrants-
"A striking testimony is borne to the salubrity of the Tasmanian climate by Dr. E. S. Hall, who has been for nearly forty years a medical practitioner in that island. He points out that the death rate - which from 1857 to 1868, inclusive, was only 14 per 1000 annually, as against 22 per 1000, the average in England and Wales - is undergoing a still further diminution in proportion as the native-born population become numerically greater than the imported inhabitants. As regards infant mortality, it appears that about nine out of every 10 children born survive the first year of life, and the mortality from that age up to about 14 years old decreases at a wonderful rate. The deaths in 1000 children between 3 and 14 years old only average about five per thousand annually. Dr. Hall adds that "intermittent and allied fevers are almost unknown, and other fevers are of rare occurrence. Small-pox has never yet existed in this island. Pulmonary consumption has a death-rate far below the English average, and more especially are the youths of both sexes, born in the island, comparatively exempt from this dire foe to the flower of the youth of the home countries. Emigrants from Europe with the consumptive tendency, if not too far gone, soon have the germs of this disease eradicated from the system if they observe the necessary laws of health."We perceive from recent Indian papers that the advantages presented by Tasmania, both as a sanitarium for invalided officers, and as a place of retirement for those who have quittted active service, are engaging increased attention; and that Colonel Crawford's settlement at Castra is likely to attract many half-pay officers to the "garden island of Australia."
Source: LAUNCESTON EXAMINER. (1870, May 19). Launceston Examiner (Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article39675112
Infant mortality, 1864
The climate and weather patterns had a significant effect on mortality, according to Dr. E. Swarbreck Hall's calculations. He used measurements of atmospheric pressure, wind force, temperature, solar intensity, rain fall, humidity, terrestrial radiation, elastic force of vapor, spontaneous evaporation, cloudiness, and the abundance of ozone, electricity and lightning. When all these were applied to his data on deaths for the month of August 1864, he declared:
Most of the meteorological phenomena of the month were propitious to health, and the long continued excessive deaths have at length given way to a mortality below the August average of the previous seven years.
TRANSCRIPT and TABLE
The present month, contrasted with the previous one of July, exhibits a considerable reduction of deaths in every group of ages, though most so in infants under one year old, the number in August being only one fourth of those in July. This group, moreover, is little more than one-third of the seven years' average, and less in number than any year of the whole. From " 1 to 5 years," the deaths are less than half of the seven years' average, 1861, however, had a small mortality, and 1857 one less. But both of those years exceeded the present one in the total of all under 5 years old, and this is the test applied by the ablest sectarians, as to the comparative rate of mortality of any season or place. August, 1864, therefore, under this aspect, was undoubtedly the healthiest August in the table given.
In the group of ages, "5 to 20", the mortality was-two-sevenths below the seven years' average. Three years of the seven, however, had less, and two more exactly the same number. It is the large number in 1861 which raises the average so much. and it arose in that year from the epidemic of measles, six of the two deaths being from that disease, and five of the six at the Queen's Asylum for Destitute Children. At "20 to 45" years of age, the deaths were - 6-7th below the seven years' average, though four of the seven had fewer deaths than this month. From "45 to 60" the deaths were + 3 2-7 above the seven years' average ; two of the seven, however, considerably exceeded the present month. At "all ages above 60" the deaths were + 2-7th in excess of the seven years' average. Two were between 60-65; - two 65-70; - four 70-75; - two respectively 87 and 88 years old.
Classes of Disease
1 Zymotic
2 Constitutional
3 Local
4 Developmental
5 Violent ... [etc ]
Source: ANALYSIS OF THE OBSERVATORY RECORDS FOR AUGUST, 1864;
IN CONJUNCTION WITH THOSE OF BIRTHS, DEATHS, &c. By E. SWARBRECK HALL. (1864, September 23).
The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 3.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8828540
Photograph - portrait - carte de visite - Hall, Edward Swarbreck M.D. - one time Health Officer of Hobart - c. 1860s
(Photo taken by Charles A. Woolley, 42 Macquarie Street, Hobart)
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/PH31-1-26/PH31-1-26
"Oppressio infantis": infant death from overlaying
A recent review (2024) of the digitised Tasmanian death records from 1838 to 1899 that indicated sudden death from asphyxia, suffocation, smothering, and overlaying of infants under one year old found that 128 cases (66 boys, 62 girls) could be attributed to overlaying, with the majority occurring during winter (June, July, August; n = 45) compared with summer (December, January, February; n = 20). Infants dying under 2 months were the largest group - 44% and the rest, 29% from 2 to 4 months; 17% from 4 to 6 months; and 10% from 6 to one year old. The review included contemporary indices of co-sleeping mortality and SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome):
The term overlaying refers to the unintentional suffocation of an infant who is sharing a sleeping surface usually with an adult, although other siblings and domestic animals may also be involved.1 Despite being documented as early as the Judgement of Solomon (1 Kings 3:19) in the Bible: ‘… and this woman's child died in the night because she overlaid it’,2 overlaying has had a somewhat controversial history with assertions in more recent decades being made that there are no dangers to an infant in a parental bed as long as the parents have not smoked.3 This does not, however, recognise high-risk situations where the bedding is soft and indentable, the parents are fatigued or intoxicated, and the infant has intrinsic vulnerabilities.4, 5 ....
Source: Byard, R.W., Kippen, R. and Maxwell-Stewart, H. (2024), Overlaying in colonial Tasmania: Revisiting the Templeman hypothesis. J Paediatr Child Health, 60: 257-259.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.16586
Alfred Bock's post-mortem sketches 1864
These delicate drawings of post-mortem children produced by photographic artist Alfred Bock in 1864 are fittingly sensitive and far more intimately focussed on the child's face than photographs of the deceased child held by a bereaved parent, the more conventional memorial portraiture of which the cdv (below) is an example from Thomas J. Nevin taken ca. 1874, working at Alfred Bock's former studio, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart.
Pages 53-54 - Post-mortem child
Link:https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/AUTAS001144580628/AUTAS001144580628P18
Pages 51-52 - Post-mortem child
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/AUTAS001144580628/AUTAS001144580628P17
Source: Bock, Alfred & J. Walch & Sons (Tas.) (1864). Sketchbook containing post-mortem and other drawings
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/AUTAS001144580628/AUTAS001144580628P14
Infant Mortality, 1874
TRANSCRIPT
VITAL STATISTICS. The number of births of children registered was 3007, a slight increase. The ratio of births per 1000 of the population was 29.73 ; the deaths were 1690. The superior healthiness for which the climate of Tasmania has acquired such a reputation is fully exemplified by the statistics now before us. The most important criterion of infant mortality is considered to be the ratio of deaths of infants under one year old to the births in any given year. The per centage of such deaths in the Australian colonies for the five years, 1869-73, was -
In Tasmania, 9.45 ; in New South Wales, 9.57; in Queensland, 11.07 ; in Victoria, 11.86; and in South Australia, 14.24. In England in 1870, sixteen deaths of infants to every one hundred births occurred, the per centage ranged from 15 in one large town to nearly 26 in another. One statistician shows by a comparison of data that of every 1000 infants under one year old in Scotland, about 44 who now die would at least survive the most dangerous period of life (the first year of existence), with proportionally favorable chances of attaining maturity, if they were born under the more happy skies of Tasmania; between 1 and 2, the saving of life would be about 47 per 1000 ; and between 2 and 5, about 52. Zymotic* and constitutional diseases show a considerably lower ratio than other countries. The marriage rate in 1874 was 6.83 per thousand
*Zymotic disease was a 19th-century medical term for acute infectious diseases,[1] especially "chief fevers and contagious diseases (e.g. typhus and typhoid fevers, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, erysipelas, cholera, whooping-cough, diphtheria, etc.)". Zyme or microzyme was the name of the organism presumed to be the cause of the disease. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zymotic_disease)
Source: STATISTICS OF TASMANIA FOR 1874 (1875, August 7). Launceston Examiner (Tas.), p. 3
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52900785
Thomas J. Nevin's post-mortem photograph
This woman with her child may have been Mrs Jones who resided in Warwick Street, five minutes' walk from Thomas J. Nevin's studio at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town. The death of her daughter Alice Rosina, less than three months old, was announced in the press on Friday evening, 23 January 1874:
DEATH. Jones.— On 23rd January, Alice Rosina, infant daughter of W. T. Jones, Warwick-street, aged 2 months and 22 days.Source: Tasmanian Tribune. FRIDAY EVENING, JAN. 23, 1874.
Family Notices (1874, January 23)p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201169888
Subject: unidentified woman in plain dress holding a deceased [asleep?] new-born
Format: full-length sepia carte-de-visite on plain buff mount
Photographer: T. Nevin late A. Bock, City Photographic Establishment on backmark
Location and date: 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart, Tasmania ca. 1874
Details: studio setting, with carpet, slipper chair, table, flowers, backdrop, drape
Condition: foxing, fading, pinholes on mount
Provenance: eBay UK November 2025
Copyright: © KLW NFC Imprint Private Collection
T. J. Nevin's full-length photograph of a woman with a deceased infant ca. 1874
The sitter in mourning
Clothing: the mourner
She wore a plain black full-length mourning dress, hemmed in 3 tiers
Her dress was overlayed with a fringed bodice and white frill at neck
Her bodice was pinned closed without buttons, her cuffs invisible
Her long hair was pulled back, partly exposing her ears
Her hair was damped down, parted in centre, and tied at back in a bun
She wore no jewellery or ornament
Clothing: the baby
She dressed the baby in a full white christening gown, prepared for baptism and burial
A thin skull cap covered the baby's crown
Pose and expression: the photographer's directions
Photographer Thomas Nevin posed her sitting on his shiny lady's slipper chair, eyes level, facing off to her left
The baby's head rested in her left hand, the body in her right hand
The baby's eyes were closed but the mouth was left open
Nevin directed the mourner's gaze away to his right, away from the camera facing her front-on
His focus was sharpest on her eyes and mouth at the mid-point of the frame
To hand-tint her cheeks or lips after printing would have been inappropriate on this occasion
Nevin's studio decor
These cdv's (below) taken between 1868 and 1875 at Thomas J. Nevin's studio, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town, each exhibits at least one item of decor present in the set-up for his memento mori photograph (above) of the woman and her deceased infant:
the light floor covering (tapis) with a diamond and chain pattern;
the table with 3 griffin-shaped legs;
the fake Georgian window painted on a back sheet or board;
the shiny leather lady's slipper chair;
the vase with tinted flowers on the table;
the drape left of frame
THE CARPET, CHAIR and TABLE
The same arrangement of studio furniture and carpet in this portrait of a woman in a plain dark dress, possibly also in mourning, suggests she visited Nevin's studio aound the same time, ca. 1873-1874. He stamped these two cdv's with his most common commercial backmark, using black ink in those years.
Above: a mature woman, hatless, in a plain dark dress, ca. 1874.
Verso stamped "T. Nevin late A. Bock, City Photographic Establishment"
Scans © The Private Collection of C. G. Harrisson 2006.
Read more here:The C. G. Harrisson Collection: three studio stamps
THE VASE
For this portrait taken later, ca. 1875, Nevin chose a quite different arrangement of the slipper chair and table, orienting the sitter, Elizabeth Allport, towards the fake Georgian floor to ceiling window backdrop at left of frame. The vase in the shape of hands holding tinted flowers in this portrait is the same one sitting on the same table in his memento mori cdv (above) of the woman with her deceased infant.
Above: Full length cdv on plain mount of Elizabeth (Ritchie) Allport (1835-1925), wife of government agent Morton Allport (1830–1878) posed seated in full bustle on Nevin's slipper chair, her right hand resting on the small table with the griffin-shaped legs, gaze direct to camera. Taken ca.1876.
The verso bears T. J. Nevin's government contractor backmark which includes the Royal Arms insignia.
Copyright © The Liam Peters Collection 2010. All rights reserved.
Read more here:Elizabeth Allport nee Ritchie at Thomas J. Nevin's studio 1876
THE BACK SHEET
The same backsheet as it appears in Nevin's memento mori portrait (above) appears as a standing backboard painted to suggest a three-quarter length window with partially-opened shutters in this portrait of a bearded gentlemen of senior years wearing a three-piece suit, fob chain and polished shoes, seated at the table with griffin-shaped legs. His boater placed on the table might suggest summer, Regatta Day attendance even.
Above: Bearded man of senior years, well-dressed, boater on table
Verso is stamped with Thomas J. Nevin's colonial warrant with Royal insignia, "T. J. Nevin Photographic Artist".
Scans copyright © The Private Collection of C. G. Harrisson 2006.
Read more here: The C. G. Harrisson Collection: three studio stamps
The carpet or tapis seen here, patterned with small dark squares which differs from the tapis with a diamond and chain-link pattern featured in many of Nevin's portraits ca. 1872-174, was used in a number of studio set-ups for portraits taken expressly for government officials or their family members such as this bearded gentlemen of senior years whose dress and demeanour suggests service in an aldermanic or legal capacity. The fine portrait of Elizabeth (Ritchie) Allport, wife of government agent Morton Allport, was posed seated at the same table and on the same carpet. The full-length portrait of Richard McVilly, bugle in hand, facing the camera as a child was posed with him standing on the same carpet next to the same fake Georgian window at left of frame, with even more detail than is visible in the Elizabeth Allport's portrait. Richard (Dick) McVilly was the son of William Thomas McVilly, constable and later clerk for the Lands and Works Department, HCC and Clerk of Papers.This cdv is held at the National Library of New Zealand.
NLNZ Catalogue notes:
Date: 1867-1875
Nevin, Thomas J, 1842-1923
Inscription: Inscribed - Verso - In ink : Jn Dick.
Copyright © National Library of New Zealand Ref: PA2-1196
Verso: T. J. Nevin's colonial warrant gov't contractor stamp with Royal insignia.
Read more here: T.J. Nevin's portraits of the McVilly children 1874
ANIMATED BABY PHOTO
Also held in the © The Liam Peters Private Collection is this photograph of what appears to be an animated baby, arms in the air and eyes focussed on someone to the child's left. The blue ink used here to tint a cushion behind each shoulder of the child's white dress, was used by Nevin to print his commonly used commercial backmark studio stamp verso between 1867-1870; from 1871, he used black ink for the same backmark.
Carte-de-visite of a reclining baby with blue tint recto on head cushion and backmark.
Scans submitted here courtesy of private collector Liam Peters, December 2010.
Copyright © The Liam Peters Collection 2010 ARR
Read more here: The Liam Peters Collection
Tombstones copied, terms cheap!
Death was good for business. While operating as the firm "Nevin & Smith, Photographers, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobarton" with partner Robert Smith, 1867-1868, Thomas J. Nevin advertised on labels pasted to the back of stereographs featuring landscapes and residences in a series called Tasmanian Views that he could also provide copies of tombstones at cheap rates.
Stereograph by Nevin & Smith of four people outside a house with side extensions
Verso: Nevin & Smith yellow label ca. 1868
Icon, pointing finger: Views of Residences, Tombstones copied, Terms: - Cheap!
Copyright © Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, TMAG Ref: Q16826.9
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- Elizabeth Allport nee Ritchie at Thomas J. Nevin's studio 1876
- Lost originals: the Nevin, Genge and Chandler family photographs
- The C. G. Harrisson Collection: three studio stamps
- The Liam Peters Collection
- Thomas Nevin's studio decor: the lady's slipper chair
- Thomas Nevin's women clients and their dresses 1870s
- T.J. Nevin's portraits of the McVilly children 1874
- Tombstones copied, Terms: - Cheap!
- Thomas J. Nevin's Blue Ink Series 1860s - 1870s
