On the road with Sam Clifford and Thomas Nevin 1874

TRAVELLING PHOTOGRAPHERS 1874
TEMPLARS at BOTHWELL

Courtesy State Library of Tasmania
Countryside surrounding Melton Mowbray showing hotel and Midland Highway
Photographer Thomas Nevin 1874
Archives Office of Tasmania Ref: ADRI: PH30-1-896
https://stors.tas.gov.au/PH30-1-896

Tasmanian professional photographers Thomas J. Nevin and Samuel Clifford were close friends and business partners from the 1860s until Samuel Clifford's death in 1890. On this tour, they travelled on the main road north from Hobart to Launceston via Bothwell. In the final week of September 1874, while passing through Bothwell, 45 miles north of Hobart, they were enjoined to photograph the procession of Templars attending a large meeting. The Mercury reported their arrival in the town in a long account of the meeting, published on 26 September, 1874:

Clifford and Nevin in Bothwell 26 Sept 1874

Samuel Clifford and Thomas Nevin in Bothwell
The Mercury 26 Sept 1874

TRANSCRIPT

The members of the Order, according to their respective lodges then formed in procession outside the building, where a capital photograph was taken by Messrs Clifford and Nevin, photographers of Hobart Town, who were located in the township on a travelling tour. The township was then paraded, the band striking up some lively airs, but a smart shower coming down, the procession was speedily dispersed in every directions in quest of shelter.

Thomas Nevin photographed one of these Templars around the same time. This CDV features a senior member surrounded by the usual items of Nevin's studio decor, plus his big tabletop stereoscopic viewer.

Above: Freemason with Thomas Nevin's tabletop stereo viewer ca 1874
Courtesy The Lucy Batchelor Collection

The Templar procession caught in the rain
T. Nevin stereograph, Bothwell, September 1874
State Library of Tasmania Ref: LPIC147_1_126

Purposes of the Tour
1. Advertising for Samuel Page's Coachline between Hobart, Oatlands and Launceston.
Both photographers and their boxes of photographic equipment travelled on Samuel Page's coaches on this tour. Thomas Nevin had a commercial commission to produce advertisements for Samuel Page (an example is held at the QVMAG, Launceston). Samuel Page ran a service for the Colonial Government, carrying both the Royal Mail and prisoners from rural lock-ups who were destined for the Hobart Gaol.

Sam Page's license published in the police gazette
Tasmania Reports of Crime, James Barnard Gov't Printer 1874

2. Police photographs
Thomas Nevin had police business to attend to at the Bothwell Court House which included the delivery of duplicates of his photographs of habitual offenders for men wanted on warrants and believed to be in the region. He took this photograph of the court house exterior before departure.

Bothwell Court House
Courtesy Archives Tasmania
See this article: Working with police and prisoners

3. Scenic views for commercial sale
Clifford and Nevin produced stereographs of the River Derwent at New Norfolk, the Salmon Ponds at Plenty, and general scenic landscapes along the main route.

Images courtesy State Library of Tasmania
Refs: AUTAS001124850256; AUTAS001124075771

TMAG Catalogue notes (online until 2006)
Ref: Q1994.56.7
ITEM NAME: Photograph:
MEDIUM: sepia stereoscope salt paper print ,
MAKER: T Nevin [Artist];
DATE: 1870c
DESCRIPTION : Salmon Ponds at Plenty near New Norfolk
INSCRIPTIONS & MARKS: Impressed on front: T Nevin/ photo

Read more in these posts:

4. Preparations for the Transit of Venus
Samuel Clifford had arranged a meeting with Alfred Biggs at Campbell Town who was preparing for the visit of an American expedition to photograph the Transit of Venus in December, headed by Charles Raymond . With William Valentine who had made his home The Grange available to the expedition, school master, bank officer, astronomer and inventor Alfred Biggs would assist with the construction of the brick pier for the transit instrument and the wooden hut.

Source: New York Times

This photograph of fellow Wesleyan Alfred Biggs was taken during their visit, probably by Nevin.

Courtesy Archives Tasmania
Carte of Alfred Biggs
Ref: 30-2892c

Verso inscription on several cartes held in public and private collections, possibly an example of either Nevin's or Clifford's handwriting.

RELATED ARTICLES main weblog

IN HIS OWN WORDS...

"T. J. NEVIN
PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST,
Returns his sincere thanks to his friends and the public for past favours, and having made a considerable Reduction in his Prices to suit the times, he solicits a continuance of their patronage, and invites attention to his circulars, showing particulars of the small cost for a first-class faithful Likeness.
140 ELIZABETH-STREET"
Hobart Mercury, 1st February 1873

“I hope that you have not got it in your mind that I am implicated with the ghost“.
Hobart Mercury, 4 December 1880

"Defendant said that he was the father of a large number of children, and did not know which one was referred to. (Laughter.)"
Hobart Mercury, 11 August 1886

"Mr. Thos Nevin was under the impression that the police should be under stricter supervision."
Hobart Mercury, 19 July 1888.

BIOGRAPHY: professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced large numbers of stereographs and cartes-de-visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Switzerland.

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Important Notices

INDIGENOUS NOTICE:
lutruwita/Tasmania/Van Diemen's Land (loo-tru-wee-ta) always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

This weblog pays respect to the ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging of the first Australian peoples and acknowledges their continued connection to land, sea and culture as the traditional custodians of this country.

Irish-born Thomas J. Nevin would have been keenly aware that the residence and photographic studio he occupied at No's 138-140 Elizabeth St. Hobart in the 1870s were built on the traditional lands, nipaluna of the palawa people. It is no small irony that today, the very same property, which is renumbered as No. 198 Elizabeth St. Hobart and is occupied by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, has returned to its traditional owners.

Looking east from the corner of Patrick St., the Royal Standard Hotel, 142 Elizabeth St. then T. J. Nevin’s studio and residence, 140-138 Elizabeth St. Hobart, 1870s

We also acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the City of Sydney, and the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, the traditional custodians of the Kamberri/Canberra region on whose lands this site is maintained.

PLEASE NOTE: images on this weblog represent deceased people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Viewing such images may cause sadness and distress.

DISCLAIMER: We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of T. J. Nevin's prisoner/convict photographs (300+ extant) to the non-photographer A. H. Boyd, nor do we condone any attempts by public institutions or private individuals to co-opt the work on these Thomas J. Nevin weblogs and associated sites to apply the misattribution.

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Anthony Trollope at Port Arthur

Thomas Nevin's VIP commission 1872

VISIT TO PORT ARTHUR.- Mr. Trollope and the Hon. Howard Spensly, Esq., Solicitor-General of Victoria, accompanied the Hon. the Premier, J.M. Wilson, Esq., and the Hon. the Attorney-General, W.R. Giblin, Esq., embarked in the Government schooner late last night, some time after Mr. Trollope had concluded his lecture on "Modern Fiction, as a recreation for young people," and left for Port Arthur. Their visit to the Peninsula will be a very hurried one, and will afford them only scant opportunity of inspecting the penal establishment, it being the intention of Messrs. Trollope and Spensly to leave Hobart Town for the North, en route for Victoria in a few days ...

Source: The Mercury 2 February 1872