Tuesday, January 29, 2008

National Library of Australia's convict portraits

The National Library of Australia has a long history of attribution to commercial and police photographer Thomas J. Nevin for their holdings of 84 Tasmanian "Convict portraits 1874". Information has been archived in these areas:

The Digital Collection displays 82 images (of 84) online;
The Pictorial Catalogue lists additional names and information; and
The Photographers' Files include accession details, correspondence, and worksheets.
The Picture Australia site has so far harvested 157 convict photographs from the NLA Collection and the Archives Office of Tasmania with Nevin's attribution.

PICTURE AUSTRALIA: digital harvest 8th February 2010 (NLA and AOT, 157 images)

Picture Australia 2010 digital harvest Tasmanian convicts 1874

Digital harvest from the National Library of Australia’s Picture Australia service of Thomas Nevin’s convict photographs held in public libraries: performed 8th February 2010. Webshots only.



NATIONAL LIBRARY of AUSTRALIA CATALOGUE: collections and documents



NLA CATALOGUE at April 2007
[Header] Nevin, Thomas J., 1842-ca. 1922.
Title: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874 [picture] / Thomas J. Nevin.
Date: 1874.
Extent: 78 photographs on carte-de-visite mounts : albumen, some col. ; 9.3 x 5.7 cm.
Summary: 78 identification photographs of 70 Port Arthur convicts taken at about the time the settlement was closed. All are annotated on reverse with the subject's name, the ship they were transported on, and 'Taken at Port Arthur 1874'. The photographs bear Thomas Nevin's studio stamp.
Notes: P1029/56 - 62, 64-67 from the Gunson Collection.
Twenty-two portraits were exhibited: "In a New Light: Australian Photography 1850s-1930s";


These webshots taken in May 2007 of the National Library of Australia's holdings for 78 photographs of Tasmanian prisoners taken by photographer Thomas J. Nevin between 1871-1886 show correct attribution from accession records dating from 1982. A further six photographs were digitized in 2009. The reproduction online of the 22 photographs digitized for the exhibition "In A New Light", 2000 are better in quality than the more recent digitization of the remaining 60 or so in the NLA's collection. This exhibition was the first of the NLA's misattribution of the photographs to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd, a result of pressure brought to bear on Pictorial staff by Warwick Reeder (MA thesis ANU 1995) among others who had used Chris Long's "belief" in Boyd as "new evidence" without checking any of his sources; if they had bothered, they would have discovered that he had cited statements which were never made by those whose work he cited, eg. Margaret Glover.

The NLA persists with this misattribution to A.H. Boyd under pressure from an individual called Julia Clark seeking personal advantage over any other PhD student, school student, researcher, or member of the public. The current NLA catalogue ADVERTISES her name with this entry on every convict portrait, overkill indicative of the lack of real evidence. The dead-end anomaly about A.H. Boyd was first noted on our weblogs in 2005. Clark has had five years to PROVE Boyd's attribution, which she hasn't. The wording here - "... considered more likely" is not evidence; it is evidence only of the lack of evidence. See this article on the PARASITIC ATTRIBUTION to A.H. Boyd and other articles dealing with attribution issues.

The catalogue states (as at May 2010):



[webshot]
Title
Charles Hayes, per Moffat, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture].
Description
No photographer name or studio stamp appears on these photographs. Formerly attributed to Thomas J. Nevin, the portraits are now considered more likely to have been taken by A.H. Boyd. See: Julia Clark. A question of attribution: Port Arthur's convict portraits in Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol 12, 2010, p77-97.; Part of collection: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874.; Title from inscription on verso.; Inscription: "75 ; Charles Hayes, per Moffat [?], taken at Port Arthur, 1874"--In ink on verso.; Condition: Some foxing.; Also available in an electronic version via the Internet at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn4506217.
Subject
Hayes, Charles -- Portraits.
Subject
Convicts -- Tasmania -- Port Arthur -- Portraits.
Publisher1874.
Image number
nla.pic-vn4506217
Contributor Boyd, A. H. (Aldolarius Humphrey), 1829-1891..
It is futile chasing Clark's anomalous vacuities to their inevitable dead-end regardless of the NLA cataloguist's personal opinions (and the petty politics which inform them). A.H. Boyd just happened to be the man in charge at the Port Arthur prison, sixty kms from Hobart, when some glass negatives supposedly arrived as cargo destined for government stores in 1873, although evidence suggests they did not arrive. It is simplistic in the extreme to assume that the men whose photographs survive were photographed with these same glass negatives, when thousands of glass negatives and thousands of prisoner photographs were in existence in Tasmania by 1874. There is no factual connection between photography and A.H. Boyd who had no reputation in his lifetime as a photographer, no works by him are extant, and no documents exist that associate him with the Tasmanian Government's 19th century police photographic activities dating from Nevin's engagement in 1871 and the introduction of the related legislation in 1873. Boyd played no role in the creation of these police mugshots which the NLA insists on calling "Convict Portraits, Port Arthur 1874". The assumption that these men were photographed at the Port Arthur prison is fundamentally incorrect. They were photographed at the Hobart Gaol after their criminal trial in the adjoining Supreme Court. These men were recidivists and repeat offenders whose extensive criminal careers in the open prison of the island of Tasmania earned them a further sentence and a mugshot by Thomas Nevin working with police on a daily basis at the Hobart Gaol and Municipal Police Office located at the Town Hall.

The NLA acquired some of their collection from Dr Neil Gunson as archival estrays in the 1960s from the Sheriff's Office, Hobart Gaol and Benevolent Society (Dan Sprod papers NLA MS 2320 1.5.64 Missionary history), but most of their current holdings of Tasmanian prisoner photographs in Nevin's name were acquired ca. 1982 in an album from the QVMAG exhibition 1977, although the album was not accessioned until 1995, by which time the provenance was supposedly forgotten. The curator of the QVMAG exhibition (1977) of Nevin's prisoner photographs indicated that this album was sent first to the National Gallery of Victoria, and then forwarded to the NLA a year or so before 1984 (interview at NGA 1984). This album was still intact in 2001: the cartes were still positioned in mounts on album leaves, witnessed by a Nevin descendant.

Many of these convict cartes held at the NLA are Nevin's original duplicates of the same images held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and the Archives Office of Tasmania. Several were copied by John Watt Beattie in the early 1900s and deposited at the TMAG. This simple fact underscores the extensive dispersal which has taken place since the mid 20th century, principally from the QVMAG collection (numbers on recto and verso): 1958, 1977, 1982, 1985, 1987 and most recently for a digital database. Although the Nevin brothers photographed more than a thousand prisoners over two decades, the bulk has been lost, destroyed or sold at private auction. The remaining 300 or so were selected or salvaged by Beattie ca. 1916 to display to tourists; he selected only those prisoners whose sentences were severe enough to warrant a criminal sitting in the Supreme Court: the offender's apparent notoriety was the selling point. In this respect, they are not a random selection, nor a series. But they were not salvaged because they were an archive held at Port Arthur; they were never held at Port Arthur, nor taken there. Nevin photographed the prisoner once as a single capture in Hobart, produced multiple prints as cartes-de-visite on oval mounts from his original glass negatives at his city studio and later at studios in the Hobart Gaol and Municipal Police Office, and made at least four duplicates from his glass negative for circulation to other prisons and police in regional Tasmania, in addition to the copies needed to paste onto warrants, prisoner records sheets, and the central register held at the Hobart Town Hall.

Whether or not Nevin's stamp or handwriting appears on the verso of these cartes held at the NLA is not important unless you want to believe the indefensible Boyd furphy. Police photography has rarely been accredited, not even when a 19th century professional and commercial photographer was involved, as in Thomas Nevin's case in Tasmania and Charles Nettleton's in Victoria. The documentation of Nevin's career is now extensive, and his photographic work, including prisoner photographs held in all other public and private collections, some of which bear his government contractor's studio stamp with the colonial warrant Royal Arms insignia (QVMAG, SLNSW), clearly attest to his employment both as a commercial photographer and civil servant under contract to the Hobart Municipal Police Office and Prisons Department for most of his working life (1864 - 1886). Nevin's colonial Royal Arms warrant studio stamp, identical to the seal of the Hobart Supreme Court, was used to register joint copyright with the Customs and Patents Office and the Hobart City Corporation (one trade sample per batch of 100), to access his commission, and renew his contracts (1868 -1876). Once he became a full-time civil servant with the HCC in 1876, the stamp was unnecessary. His brother Constable John Nevin was his assistant at the Hobart Gaol for the later years of Nevin's service to the Municipal Police Office (1876-1886).

The NLA's accession records reveal how vague the NLA has been with regard to the provenance of their collection, and the meagre attention paid to accuracy, let alone veracity. First they asserted their these photographs of Tasmanian prisoners carried Thomas J. Nevin's stamp on the versos, now they say no photographer's stamp appears on the versos, as if police photographs are to be measured by the same standards as commercial art photography. Such expectations measure only the degree of ignorance of the staff in matters of attribution.

In addition to the digitised 82 convict portraits by Thomas J. Nevin there are three more photographs in the NLA collection taken by T. J. Nevin of prisoners William Lee, William Meaghers and Charles Rosetta in the 1870s. All three are reproductions of Nevin's originals by Beattie and Searle, 1916, and have not been attributed to Nevin, although they should be, because these prisoners were well and truly dead by 1916..

The NLA has performed a batch edit on all 82 portraits currently online, with the misleading head entry "Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874." Not all items bear the copyist's and/or archivist's inscription on verso, "Taken at Port Arthur, 1874." The inscription probably dates to ca. 1916 when these images were copied and offered for sale to tourists by John Watt Beattie in his convictaria museum, located in Hobart; he also contributed these to the travelling exhibitions in the early 1900s on the fake convict ship Success at Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart.



Recto and verso with carte insert, NLA collection of Tasmanian prisoner photographs by T. J. Nevin.

This portrait (below) of convict Edington is an example of the NLA's poor reproduction (recto) of the 50 recently digitised since May 2007, and of incorrect information re place and date of capture. The inscription on verso merely states that John Edington was a "native" - i.e. a local, and that his two-year sentence was for robbery:



NLA Catalogue
nla.pic-vn4269866
John Edington, native, robbery 2 years, 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.




PHOTOGRAPHERS FILES


Webshot of Thomas Nevin's ephemera file containing accession sheets, work sheets, correspondence, and newspaper articles, included in the Photographers Files, held at the National Library of Australia.

PICTORIAL LISTS
Catalogue entry (2003)
Nevin, Thomas J., 1842 – ca.1922  [sic-1923]
Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874

Lists for Pictorial Collections



http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/21336/20031011-0000/www.nla.gov.au/pict/list/nevin.html



Accession Nos.: P1029/1-55 AN11590418
* Indicates portraits also held in Archives Office of Tasmania

Accession number: convict's name:
P1029/1 William Adams
P1029/2 William Baker*
P1029/3 George Brown
P1029/4 James Calhaun
P1029/5 James Conlaw
P1029/6 Charles Dawnes* [sic -Downes]
P1029/7 Dennis Dogherty
P1029/8 John Doran
P1029/9 John Edington
P1029/10 George Fisher
P1029/11 John Fitzpatrick
P1029/12 James Foley*
P1029/13 William Forster*
P1029/14 Thomas Francis
P1029/15 John Funt
P1029/16 James Gearey [sic - Geary]
P1029/17a Michael Gilmore
P1029/17b Michael Gilmore
P1029/18 Michael Gilmore
P1029/19 Francis Gregson
P1029/20a John Gregson
P1029/20b John Gregson
P1029/21 Thomas Griffin
P1029/22 George Grawsett (missing) [sic Growsett]
P1029/23 James Harper
P1029/24 William Harrison*
P1029/25 William Hall
P1029/26a Walter Johnson
P1029/26b Walter Johnson
P1029/27a James Jones
P1029/27b James Jones
P1029/28 John Jones
P1029/29 Peter Killern [sic - Killeen]
P1029/30 Thomas Kelly*
P1029/31 Duncan McDonald
P1029/32 Luke Marshall
P1029/33 John Merchant*
P1029/34a Thomas Molineaux
P1029/34b Thomas Molineaux
P1029/35 John Moran
P1029/36 John F. Morris
P1029/37 William Mumford
P1029/38a John Murphy
P1029/38b John Murphy
P1029/39 Henry Page*
P1029/40 William Price
P1029/41 Thomas Reilly
P1029/42 Henry Singleton*
P1029/43 Sutherland
P1029/44 John Toomey
P1029/45 William Walker*
P1029/46 Charles Ward
P1029/47 John White
P1029/48 Henry Williams
P1029/49 John Williams (missing card and original pic)
P1029/50 George Wilson
P1029/51 John Appleby
P1029/52 Ephraim Booth
P1029/53 William Cambell [sic - Campbell aka Job Smith]
P1029/54 William Woodley
P1029/55 James Wynn

Gunson collection accession nos: P1029/ 56-62
Accession Nos: Convict’s Name:
P1029/56 Thomas Cahill
P1029/57 Samuel Evans (No neg)
P1029/58 John Finlay [or Finelly(sic)]
P1029/59 George Johnson
P1029/60 John Morrison
P1029/61 James Thomas
P1029/62 William Yeomans
P1029/63 Johns Williams

See detailed records of these prisoners here Prisoner Pictures.

NLA CATALOGUE 2005.























RELATED POSTS main weblog

Monday, January 28, 2008

Prisoner George LEATHLEY

Extant examples of Thomas J. Nevin's photographs taken in the 1870s of Tasmanian prisoners - or "convicts" which is the archaic term used in Tasmanian tourism discourse up to the present - number more than 300 in Australian public collections. These two different photographs of prisoner George Leathley are typical of his application of commercial studio portraiture. They were taken by Thomas J. Nevin between Leathley's conviction for murder in 1866 and Leathley's discharge with a ticket of leave in 1876. During those years, the earlier photograph, No. 14, was the first, taken in 1872 and reprinted in 1874, entered into the Hobart Gaol photo book as No. 226, pasted again onto Leathley's criminal record sheet. The photograph with the recto No. 89, might evince an older George Leathley, taken in 1876 on his discharge. His original conviction in 1866 was death, commuted to life in prison.



Prisoner George Leathley No. 89
Photographer; T. J. Nevin
Carte-de-visite originally held at the QVMAG
Now held at the TMAG,  Ref: Q15588



Prisoner George Leathley
Thomas Nevin's original print from his glass negative
Reprinted by John Watt Beattie on a panel for sale, 1916
Held at the QVMAG Ref: 1983_p_0163-0176



Prisoner George Leathley No's. 14 and 226
National Library of Australia collection
Title: George Leathley, per ship Blundell, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture]
Creator: T. J. Nevin
Date: 1874.
Extent: 1 photograph on carte-de-visite mount : albumen ; 9.4 x 5.6 cm., on mount 10.4 x 6.4 cm.
Context: Part of Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874 [picture]
Series: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874.
Title from inscription on reverse.
Inscription: “nos. 14 & 226”–On reverse.

Professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin was commissioned by his family solicitor, the Hon. Attorney-General W.R. Giblin, to photograph prisoners for the Colonial Government of Tasmania as early as 1871, the year the government of NSW authorised the Inspector of Prisons, Harold McLean, to commence the photographing of all prisoners convicted in the NSW Superior Courts.

New South Wales 1871
The colony of New South Wales had already introduced the practice of photographing prisoners twice, firstly on entry to prison and secondly near the end of their term of incarceration by January 1872 when this report was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. The purpose of the visit to the Port Arthur prison by the former Premier and Solicitor-general from the colony of Victoria with photographer, Thomas Nevin and the Tasmanian Attorney-General the Hon. W. R. Giblin on 1st February 1872 in the company of visiting British author Anthony Trollope, was to establish a similar system for processing prisoners through the central Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall on their relocation from the dilapidated and dysfunctional Port Arthur prison to the Hobart Gaol in Campbell St. The few remaining prisoners at Port Arthur were returned to Hobart from mid-1873 to early 1874. Some were photographed by Nevin at Port Arthur, but the majority were photographed by Nevin on arrival in Hobart.


Photography and Prisons
The Sydney Morning Herald 10 January 1872

TRANSCRIPT
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRISONS.-We understand that, at the instance of Inspector-General McLerie, Mr. Harold McLean, the Sheriff, has recently introduced into Darlinghurst gaol the English practice of photographing all criminals in that establishment whose antecedents or whose prospective power of doing mischief make them, in the judgment of the police authorities, eligible for that distinction. It is an honour, however, which has to be " thrust " upon some men, for they shrink before the lens of the photographer more than they would quail before the eye of a living detective. The reluctance of such worthies in many cases can only be conquered by the deprivation of the ordinary gaol indulgencies; and even then they submit with so bad a grace that their acquiescence is feigned rather than real. The facial contortions to which the more knowing ones resort are said to be truly ingenious. One scoundrel will assume a smug and sanctimonious aspect, while another will chastise his features into an expression of injured innocence or blank stupidity which would almost defy recognition. They are pursued, however, through all disguises, and when a satisfactory portrait is obtained copies are transferred to the black books of the Inspector-General. The prisoners are first " taken" in their own clothes on entering the gaol, and the second portrait is produced near the expiration of their sentence. When mounted in the police album, the cartes-de-visite, if we may so style them, are placed between two columns, one containing a personal description of the offender, and the other a record of his criminal history. Briefer or more comprehensive biographies have probably never been framed. Copies of these photographs are sent to the superintendents of police in the country districts, and also to the adjoining colonies. To a certain extent photography has proved in England an effective check upon crime, and it is obviously calculated to render most valuable aid in the detection of notorious criminals. New South Wales is, we understand, the only Australian colony which has yet adopted this system ; but the practice is likely soon to become general.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald. (1872, January 10). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13250452

Tasmania 1873
Following the NSW government example, Thomas Nevin photographed men convicted in the Hobart Supreme Court who were housed in the adjoining Hobart Gaol. Those men who were convicted in regional courts with sentences longer than three months were transferred to Hobart. He took at least two original photographs of the prisoner, on different occasions: the first, the booking shot, was taken on entry into the prison, sometimes when the prisoner was unshaved and in ordinary or street clothing as soon as convicted; the second was taken fourteen days prior to the prisoner's discharge. Additional prisoner photographs were taken by T. J. Nevin at the Port Arthur penitentiary between 1872 and 1874, and at the Cascades Prison for Males with the assistance of his younger brother Constable John Nevin in the unusual circumstance of the transfer of 103 prisoners from the Port Arthur prison to the Hobart Gaol at the request of the Parliament in 1873. Up to six duplicates were produced from each negative.



The inscriptions on the verso of this and many more cartes-de-visite duplicates - "Taken at Port Arthur, 1874" - together with the convict's name and ship on which he was transported have nothing to do with the "belief" published by Chris Long in 1995 (TMAG) that A. H. Boyd, Commandant at Port Arthur until December 1873, was the photographer of these Tasmanian prisoners. A. H. Boyd was not a photographer by any definition of the term, and had nothing to do with the production of these mugshots. The inscriptions on verso and recto were used archivists and/or copyists such as John Watt Beattie who sold them to tourists, and date from the 1890s-1920s. His reproductions and montages of these 1870s mugshots were displayed on the fake convict ship, the Success, during visits to Hobart, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Sydney.





Prisoner George Leathley
Taken at the National Library of Australia, Feb. 2015
Photos recto and verso copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2015

One image, two copies with different numbering on mount: Nevin photographed Leathley while incarcerated at Port Arthur and the Hobart Gaol .

Police Records for George Leathley



George Leathley was sentenced to death for murder in January 1866, sentence commuted to Life.



Inquest: Verdict of murder by George Leathley 6 December 1866



George Leathley was discharged from Hobart Town on 2nd February, 1876 with a ticket-of-leave.





[Above]: Prisoner mugshot of George Leathley 1870s
On left, print from T. J. Nevin's original glass plate, collated on a panel reproduced by Beattie in 1916
On right,  the black and white print produced from Nevin's original sepia print at the QVMAG in the 1980s, cleaned of scratches and cracks.

The panel prepared by John Watt Beattie has the original sepia print of Leathley pasted in top row, second from right:



Reprinted by John Watt Beattie on a panel for sale, 1916
Held at the QVMAG Ref: 1983_p_0163-0176

Addenda: Original Documents

GEORGE LEATHLEY (1823-1895)

1844: George Leathley transported to VDL



Name:Leathley, George
Record Type:Convicts
Arrival date:6 Jul 1844
Ship:Blundell
Voyage number:365
Index number:41896
Document ID: NAME_INDEXES:1411115
Conduct RecordCON33/1/78
CON37/1/1 Page 5628
Indent CON17/1/2 Page 46

George Leathley was granted a ticket of leave, 1854.

CONVICT INDENT RECORD
George Leathley was transported for horse-stealing from Mr. Sam Petty of Holbeck, Yorkshire near Leeds and transported for 12 years. His name is the second entry of page (left) and details on second page.



Name:Leathley, George
Record Type:Convicts
Arrival date:6 Jul 1844
Ship:Blundell
Voyage number:365
Index number:41896
Document ID: NAME_INDEXES:1411115
Conduct RecordCON33/1/78
CON37/1/1 Page 5628
Indent CON17/1/2 Page 46

1853: George Leathley's permission to marry



Convicts' permission to marry:
George Leathley per Blundell and Catherine Mannon per Earl Grey, recommended on 11th February 1853

1853: George Leathley marries Catherine Mannon



Name: Leathley, George
Record Type: Marriages
Gender:Male
Age:30
Spouse: Manning, Catherine
Gender:Female
Age:24
Date of marriage:07 Mar 1853
Registered:Hobart
Registration year:1853
Document ID: NAME_INDEXES:846953
ResourceRGD37/1/12 no 289

George Leathley: Marriage 7th March 1853 to Catherine Mannon (Manning?)

1862: premature birth and death of daughter



Name:Leathley, Catherine
Record Type:Deaths
Gender:Female
Father:Leathley, George
Date of death:29 Jan 1862
Registered:Hobart
Registration year:1862
Document ID:
NAME_INDEXES:1224179
ResourceRGD35/1/6 no 3152

A daughter, named after her mother, Catherine Leathley, was born prematurely and died two hours later on 29th January 1862.

1865: George Leathley charged with murder

NEWSPAPER REPORTS



George Leathley charged with murder:
The Mercury, 5th December 1865



TRANSCRIPT
CHARGE of MURDER. - George Leathley, blacksmith, was brought up, and charged by Detective Morley with the wilful murder of Elijah round, and remanded until Tuesday next.
Source: The Mercury, 6 December 1865

George's Leathley's account of the murder:



Adjourned inquest
The Mercury, 13 December 1865

1866: George Leathley's sentence for murder



Testimonies and verdict in the case of George Leathley



TRANSCRIPT
THE CONVICT UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH. - At the meeting of the Governor in Council on Monday, the case of George Leathley, convicted at the recent Supreme Court Sessions, of the wilful murder of Elijah Round, and sentenced to death was reported upon by his Honor the Chief- Justice when the Council taking circumstances in consideration, decided upon sparing the man's life, commuting the sentence to imprisonment for life.
George Leathley's sentence of death for the murder of Elijah round was commuted to life
Launceston Examiner, 1st February 1866

1866: The Leathley children





Description: Application for admission to the Orphan School by George Leathley and Catherine Mannon (aka Maher) for George, David and Anastasia Leathley January 1866
Record type  General
Year  1866
Source: Archives Office Tasmania

[Above]: Letter from Sergeant A. Jones at the Watch House, Police Office, dated 26th January 1866 to the Colonial Secretary Hobart a day after George Leathley was convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. The letter informs the CS that two of Leathley's boys - George and David - were being kept at the watch house after being found wandering the streets. The letter recommends that George and Catherine Leathley's children - Sarah (aged 10), Ann (aged 12), David (aged 7) and George (aged 13) - be placed at the Asylum at New Town. The mother  Catherine had recently spent two months in detention at the House of Corrections for Females, Cascades, for default of a payment and being idle and disorderly. Both parents are described as being of a "most dissolute character".

1882: George Leathley marries Catherine Curtain
George Leathley was discharged from the Hobart Gaol in 1876. He may have agreed to a divorce with his first wife Catherine Mannon to enable this second marriage, His first wife Catherine Mannon was still alive in 1882. She remarried in 1896 only a few months after George Leathley's death, to labourer Benjamin Jones.



Name: Leathley, George
Record Type:Marriages
Gender:Male
Age:Adult
Spouse:Curtain, Catherine
Gender:Female
Age:Adult
Date of marriage:23 Dec 1882
Registered:Spring Bay
Registration year:1882
Document ID:
NAME_INDEXES:895451
ResourceRGD37/1/41 no 957

George Leathley marries another woman named Catherine, this time to Catherine Curtain on 23rd  December 1882.

1894: George Leathley imprisoned for 14 days
By September 17th, 1894, when George Leathley, recorded as 75 years old, was charged with Breach of the Health Act, his photograph taken at the Hobart Gaol and pasted to an otherwise blank rap sheet, depicted an elderly man just a few months away from death.



George Leathley, September 1894, Hobart Gaol.



Source: Hobart Gaol Records GD63/1/2 1894-1897
Archives Office Tasmania: http://stors.tas.gov.au/GD63-1-2 page 1083

1895: Death of George Leathley



Death of George Leathley
The Mercury, 24th June 1895

TRANSCRIPT
LEATHLEY.- On June 23, at his late residence, 25 Barrack-street, George Leathley, after a long and painful illness, in the 71st year of his age. [sic - Hobart Gaol recorded his age as 75 yrs old in 1894].



Name: Leathley, George
Record Type:Deaths
Gender:Male
Age:71
Date of death:23 Jun 1895
Registered:Hobart
Registration year:1895
Document ID: NAME_INDEXES:1140754
ResourceRGD35/1/15 no 171

George Leathley (1823-1895)
Death registration 23rd June 1895
Born England, died at Barrack St. Hobart
Death due to senile decay, listed as 71 yrs old, a blacksmith

1896: Widow Catherine Leathley marries again



Widow Catherine Leathley, 47 yrs old, married widower Benjamin Jones, 62 years old, on 23 October 1896. She declared two of her children were alive, and two dead.
Certificate of Marriage No. 407
Source: Archives Office Tasmania

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On board the "City of Hobart" 31st January 1872