Prisoner Samuel PAUL, "native" sentenced to death 1869

Samuel PAUL: SUPREME COURT CONVICTION for RAPE 1868
SENTENCE REMITTED 1878

NLA Catalogue
Title Samuel Paul, native, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [incorrect information].
Date 1874.
Extent 1 photograph on carte-de-visite mount : albumen ; 9.3 x 5.6 cm. on mount 10.5 x 6.4cm
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-142921214

Samuel PAUL was 15 years old when he was imprisoned at the Hobart Gaol on 26 March 1868 for gambling. He was a minor, locally born, and not a convicted felon transported to Tasmania before 1853 when transportation ceased. His short sentence and date of incarceration in 1868 precluded being photographed because the systematic photographic documentation of prisoners did not commence until 1872 when the Attorney-General the Hon. W. R. Giblin commissioned commercial photographer and government contractor Thomas J. Nevin in accordance with regulations in NSW and Victoria.

POLICE RECORDS

Samuel Paul, 15 yrs old, was sentenced on 26 March 1868 to one month for gambling, discharged on 1 April 1868. Eighteen months later he was convicted in the Supreme Court Hobart for rape, and sentenced to death.

Samuel Paul - "native" i.e. locally born - was convicted of rape and sentenced to death at the Supreme Court Hobart on 14 September 1869.

Samuel Paul was reprieved, term reduced to 15 years and discharged from the Hobart Gaol on 20 March 1878, sentence remitted. He was photographed at the Hobart Gaol on transfer from the Port Arthur prison in 1876 by T. J. Nevin, asssisted by his brother Constable John Nevin on release.

Source: Gaol for Males, Campbell-Street, Hobart Town: report for 1875 (Legislative Council)
https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/31599/lc1876pp47.pdf

Samuel Paul, native, free, was transferred from the Port Arthur prison to Hobart in 1876.

Addenda
Birth, press and court records for Samuel PAUL

1850: born at Hobart, 1850

Birth registration of Samuel PAUL, Hobart 1850
Archives Office Tasmania ref: RGD33-1-3-P276

1868: gambling

GAMBLING. John Whittaker, Joseph Whittaker and Samuel Paul were charged with having gambled on the Sabbath day in the township of Wellington. They pleaded guilty. From the statement of C.D.C. Jones two of the boys were very badly conducted. The Stipendiary Magistrate sentenced Samuel Paul to one month's imprisonment, and ordered that the lads Whittaker should be imprisoned for two months.

Source: Police Court. (1868, March 27). The Tasmanian Times (Hobart Town, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article232859070

1869: charge of indecent assault of girl under 12 years of age

INDECENT ASSAULT. Samuel Paul, a youth in the employ of Mr Graves at Lansdowne Crescent, was placed in the dock on a charge of the above nature, towards a little girl named Alice Ward, eight years and seven months of age. Mr Superintendent Propsting conducted the prosecution, and Mr Sheehy appeared for the prisoner. The girl gave her evidence, and after some medical testimony had been taken the case was remanded, awaiting the attendance of a material witness. The Court then rose.

Source: Tasmanian Times (Hobart Town, Tas.), Wednesday 16 June 1869, page 2
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article232868675

1869: sentence of death

Samuel Paul, convicted of an indecent assault, had sentence of death recorded.

Source:Tasmanian Times (Hobart Town, Tas.), Thursday 16 September 1869, page 2
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article233616768

1869: sentence of death for rape commuted

The sentence of death passed at Hobart Town upon Samuel Paul, for rape, has been commuted to imprisonment for 15 years.

Source: Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 - 1899), Thursday 23 September 1869, page 3
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36706122

COURT RECORDS 1869

Samuel Paul: Supreme Court trial
Archives Office Tasmania ref: SC32-1-9P134

Samuel Paul: Supreme Court trial
Archives Office Tasmania ref: SC32-1-9P135

RELATED POSTS 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.

Click here for KEY DATES 1842-1923

Try THUMBNAIL search here

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.

Our 20th Anniversary 2005-2025

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