Mary Ann Nevin, sister of Thomas Nevin

Thomas J. NEVIN portraits of his sister Mary Ann Nevin (1844-1878)
Mary Ann NEVIN, marriage, birth of daughter and death

Mary Ann Nevin 1873

Subject: Mary Ann Nevin (1844-1878)
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (her brother)
Date and Location: Hobart, Tasmania ca. 1873
Details: Carte-de-visite on buff mount, with dark sepia background.
Photographed with complete sideways view to waist with subject facing right of frame.
Clothing and hair: Mary Ann wore a heavy tweed jacket buttoned at the neck with a brooch, a hat partially visible in right hand. Her hair was parted centre and held at shoulder length.
Light rose tinting on cheeks.
Copyright © KLW NFC Imprint Private Collection 2005. Watermarked.

Born near Belfast Ireland in 1844, Mary Ann Nevin arrived in Hobart, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in 1852 with her parents, free settlers John Nevin and Mary Ann (Dickson) Nevin and three siblings. All four children of John and Mary Nevin were under twelve years old: brother Thomas James Nevin (b.1842), sister Rebecca Jane Nevin (b. 1847), and younger brother William John (Jack) Nevin (b.1852). Neither sister nor indeed her younger brother Jack would live to see the 20th century. Photographer Thomas J. Nevin outlived them all, including his niece, Mary Ann Carr, daughter of this sister Mary Ann (Nevin) Carr who died weeks after childbirth, survived by her daughter who also died young, 20 yrs old in 1898.

Arrival at Hobart 1852
Mary Ann Nevin was placed on the sick list of the Fairlie on 23 April 1852 together with her mother, and in the company of some of the 290 convicts and Parkhurst prison boys on board. She was listed as "child of guard". See this article here and this article here on this site for the sick lists.

CHILDREN of John and Mary (Dickson) NEVIN
1. Thomas James Nevin: (1842-1923) died at age 80
2. Mary Ann Nevin: (1844-1878) died at age 34
3. Rebecca Jane Nevin (1847-1865) died at age 18
4. William John Nevin (1852-1891) died at age 39

Their father John Nevin snr, former soldier of the Royal Scots First Regiment of Foot, had served in the West Indies from 1825 and at the Canadian Rebellion from 1839, returning to Ireland on medical grounds in 1841. He worked his family's passage as a warden on the convict ship Fairlie, arriving at Hobart in July 1852. The Nevin family settled in Kangaroo Valley (the name changed to Lenah Valley in 1922) north of Hobart on a farm with orchards stretching down to the Franklin Museum and adjoining the Wesleyan Chapel.

Mary Ann Nevin won a Spelling Bee held at the Oddfellows Hall which was reported in the Mercury on 25 September 1875, and taught school at the Wesleyan Chapel in Kangaroo Valley.  Local historian Trevor Wilks published a history of Kangaroo Valley-Lenah Valley in 1995 which included an account of a terrible accident suffered by Mary Ann Nevin on her father's farm at Kangaroo Valley. According to his source - Mrs Lola Marshall, who was Thomas James and Elizabeth Rachel (Day) Nevin's grand daughter, i.e. daughter of their last-born daughter Mary Ann Nevin (1884-1974) and known as "Minnie Drew" on marriage - Mary Ann was savaged by a cow, and pulled through the bushes. After ten minutes of screaming, a man called Delaney came to her rescue. She suffered injuries sufficient to warrant medical attention, the incident noted by the Mercury 1st February 1873.

Marriage at Kangaroo Valley Tasmania 1877
Two years later, Mary Ann Nevin married John Carr, son of the late Captain James Carr, on May 12, 1877 at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley:
CARR-NEVIN.- On the 3rd May, at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley, by the Rev. N. Bennett, John Carr, son of the late Captain Jas. Carr, to Mary Ann Nevin, only daughter of Mr. John Nevin, Kangaroo Valley.
Source: Mercury, May 12, 1877



Nevin, Mary Anne
Record Type: Marriages
Gender: Female
Age: 31
Spouse: Carr, John
Gender: Male
Age: 37
Date of marriage: 03 May 1877
Registered: Hobart
Registration year: 1877
Record ID: NAME_INDEXES:884210
Resource: RGD37/1/36 no 359 Archives Office Tasmania
https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/NamesIndex/884210


With husband John Carr, Mary Ann (Nevin) Carr moved to Sandridge, Victoria where she died of peritonitis thirteen months later, just 34 years old, a month after giving birth to her daughter, also named Mary Ann Carr who was taken back to Tasmania and reared by her grandfather John Nevin.

Death at Sandridge Victoria 1878
Death certificate details:
Mary Ann Carr nee Nevin, of Railway Place, Borough of Sandridge (Victoria), dated 27th July 1878. Buried at Melbourne General Cemetery. Registered as a married woman, 33 years old, born in County Down, Ireland, formerly of Kangaroo Valley, New Town, Tasmania, lived 6½ months in Victoria. Wife of mariner John Carr. Death due to peritonitis 22 days after the birth of her daughter, Mary Ann. Parents registered as John Nevin, listed here as a labourer, and mother Mary Ann Nevin formerly Dickson.
CARR. - On July 27, at her residence, Sandridge, Victoria, in the 34th year of her age, Mary Ann, the beloved wife of John Carr, the only surviving daughter of Mr. John Nevin, Kangaroo Valley, New Town.
Source: Mercury 9 August 1878

Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs of his sister Mary Ann Nevin



Thomas J. Nevin's stereo of his sister Mary Anne Nevin ca. 1870 dipping a glass at New Town Creek, Kangaroo Valley, Hobart, Tasmania.
Copyright © KLW NFC Imprint Private Collection 2012.



Thomas Nevin's stereograph of his sister Mary Ann Nevin ca. 1870
Photographed with four children, one holding a toddler, and a tall man in shirt sleeves at the Kangaroo Valley school (in background)
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection
TMAG Ref: Q16826.1.2 [scan 2015].