Thomas J. NEVIN, birth registration informant for John HURST's son 1868
John HURST police record New Zealand 1870
Surveyors HURST family, Tasmania
From Rabbit Traps to Rembrandts
A Memoir by Nevin Hurst. (West Hobart, Tas. : Knocklofty Press, 2007).
Photo © Copyright KLW NFC Imprint 2012
Updated 6 May, 2024
John Nevin snr and James Hurst
The surname "Nevin" in photographer Thomas J. Nevin's family has ancestry in Grey Abbey, County Down, Ireland. While it has always been a surname in Thomas' family, it was the middle name used as a first name by a descendant of the Hurst family in Tasmania, namely fine arts dealer William Nevin Hurst (1934 - 2023) who called himself simply Nevin Hurst, (Masterpiece Gallery, Hobart). Nevin Hurst claimed a connection by descent to photographer Thomas J. Nevin's father John Nevin snr through Nevin Hurst's paternal ancestor, surveyor James Hurst whose wife Eliza Hurst, he claimed was John Nevin's sister. This connection appears to be correct; Eliza (Nevin) Hurst, needlewoman, 40 yrs old, arrived at Hobart, Tasmania on the Flora McDonald on 3 February 1855 with her son John Hurst, designer, 16 years old, and daughter Mary Jane, house servant, 14 years old - (Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, TA211 Immigration Agents Department, CB7/17/1/1).
One of John Nevin's four sisters still living at Grey Abbey informed him in a letter dated May 1855, of the consequences of war in the Crimea causing soldiers' wives, widows and children of the parish to go hungry and without warm clothing. Her contribution was knitting two comforters. Across the top of the letter she wrote - "3 years without my Brother" - in pencil, underlined. Two siblings from this family of seven children born to Rebecca and William Nevin migrated to Tasmania: their only brother John Nevin as a pensioner guard on the Fairlie (1852), and their married sister Eliza (Nevin) Hurst, known to the family as "Betty" on board the Flora McDonald (1855), together with their respective children. As Eliza Hurst was a widow before leaving for Tasmania, it appears from this letter that she was living with John Nevin and his family soon after her arrival with her son and daughter at the house he built at Kangaroo Valley (now Lenah Valley, Hobart) in 1854 on property administered by the Trustees of the Wesleyan Church. The Nevin family home was located on land in trust to the Wesleyan Church on an acre above the Lady Franklin Museum, Ancanthe, Kangaroo Valley. John Nevin snr was born Grey Abbey, County Down, Ireland in 1808, and joined the Royal Scots 1st Regiment of Foot in 1825 at Newtonards, serving first in the West Indies and then at the Canadian Rebellion in 1839. He died at Kangaroo Valley, Hobart, in 1887.
1862: John Hurst's marriage
James Hurst's son, surveyor John Hurst married Louisa Tatlow on 27th November 1862. The marriage was registered at Port Sorell, a town on the north-west coast of Tasmania on the waterway of the same name, just off Bass Strait, 20 km east of Devonport. His wife Louisa Maria Tatlow was born in 1841 to parents Anthony Tatlow, listed as "Gentleman" and Mary Moore.
Marriage of John Hurst to Louisa Tatlow, 3 December 1862, Cornwall Chronicle.
1841: birth of Louisa Maria Tatlow
1862: marriage of Louisa Maria Tatlow to John Hurst
Tasmanian Names Index
Record Type: Marriages
Gender: Female
Age: 21
Spouse: Hurst, John
Gender: Male
Age:24
Date of marriage: 27 Nov 1862
Registered: Port Sorell
Registration year:1862
Document ID: NAME_INDEXES:867034
Resource RGD37/1/21 no 582
1868: Thomas Nevin, informant
On the 11th April, 1868, Louisa Hurst, formerly Tatlow, gave birth to William Nevin Tatlow Hurst in the district of Hobart. The father's occupation was listed as "surveyor". Their son's birth was registered on 22nd May, 1868 by photographer Thos Nevin, informant, Elizabeth St., where Nevin was operating from Alfred Bock's former photographic studio at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town. Neither parent of this child carried the surname "Nevin". It was neither the mother's maiden name nor the father's middle name, so it seems the child was given his grandmother Eliza Hurst's maiden name "Nevin" as a middle name along with his mother's maiden name "Tatlow". As a surveyor, the child's father John Hurst was most likely absent from Hobart on business in May 1868, and requested Thomas Nevin to register his son's birth at the Town Hall. This is the reason the name "Nevin" appears in the BDM documents of the Hurst family in Tasmania, as a familial connection to the family of John Nevin (1808-1887).
Schooling may have brought the families closer together. John Nevin snr and his daughter Mary Ann Nevin were both school teachers in the Kangaroo Valley and New Town area. The relationship to a family of surveyors may also have benefited Thomas Nevin's photographic work with the Lands Department, which employed photographers as a matter of course by the early 1870s on government contract. When Thomas J. Nevin's own son Thomas James ("Sonny") Nevin jnr was born (and given the same name as his father) in April 1874, he too was away on business working at Port Arthur at the request of the new Surgeon-Commandant Dr John Coverdale. It was Thomas Nevin's father-in-law Captain James Day who signed Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin's son's birth registration as the "informant" on 26th May in Thomas' absence.
Thomas J. Nevin's signature on this document of William Nevin Tatlow's birth in May 1868 carries his usual abbreviation of Thomas to "Thos" with flourishes, but minus the "Jas", of "James", his middle name. It is similar to his signatures on his marriage certificate 1871, and the birth registrations of his children 1872-1888, viz:.
Above: Thomas Nevin's signatures, sourced from Tasmanian Names Index (TAHO)
Marriage registration for Thomas Nevin and Elizabeth Day, 1871
Birth registrations for two of their seven children, 1872 and 1876.
Birth of William Tatlow Nevin registered by Thos Nevin
This document is worth a close examination because of the hand-written amendments, specifically to do with the child's middle names. Someone has initialled changes, firstly to the child's second middle name, printing more clearly the name "Tatlow", and left a (barely legible) note in parentheses. The note says:
(Third Christian name and mother's surname corrected to read "Tatlow" under clerical error (word illegible) of Sec. 36 of the Reg of Births & Deaths Act 1895. See birth reg. No. 595/41 L'ton (inserted) and Marriage No. 582/62 Port Sorell. )
Above and below : detail of William Nevin Tatlow's birth registration 22 May 1868 with the signature of Thos Nevin, acting as informant, Elizabeth Street, with additions and note in parentheses.
Tasmanian Names Index (TAHO)
Name: Hurst, William Nevin Tatlow
Record Type: Births
Gender: Male
Father: Hurst, John
Mother: Tatlow, Louisa
Date of birth: 11 Apr 1868
Registered: Hobart
Registration year: 1868
Document ID: NAME_INDEXES:971541
Resource 007368108_00023 no 10026
1870: John Hurst on the run from NZ police
Wherever surveyor John Hurst may have been during 1868 that caused his absence when he requested Thomas J. Nevin to register his son's birth in his absence, he was on the run from the New Zealand police by October 1870. John Hurst was working in New Zealand in the county of Westland when he absconded with a sum of money. A charge on warrant for embezzlement by the NZ police was issued, but he apparently eluded them and was believed to have made his way to Melbourne by May 1871, and thence to Tasmania.
This extract from the Tasmanian police gazette of 2 May, 1871, reprinted from the Victoria Police gazette, not only details the charge, it gives a clear physical description of John Hurst, plus his former business interests as a journalist and newspaper proprietor. These aspects of John Hurst's background further entwine the Hurst and Nevin families formerly of Grey Abbey, Ireland, in several instances. Firstly, both John Hurst and John Nevin snr were journalists, the former a correspondent with the London Times, the latter a war correspondent during the Canadian Rebellions. Secondly, the Nevin family solicitor and Attorney-General W. R. Giblin, who would have authorised the warrant for John Hurst's arrest, especially as Hurst was a former employee of the Colonial government's Lands Dept., would have alerted John Nevin's two sons - brothers Constable John Nevin and photographer Thomas Nevin, both serving the Territorial and Municipal Police - to inform him in the event of John Hurst returning to his family in New Town. Whether John Hurst was acquitted or convicted is not clear, unless he was arrested in Victoria and charged, in which case the Victorian Public Records Office would hold those details; the Tasmanian police gazettes record no other notice about his being apprehended in their jurisdiction during the next decade.
Warrant for John Hurst, 2 May 1871
Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police, Gov't Printer
TRANSCRIPT
EXTRACTS from Victoria Police Gazette of the 2nd May, 1871
John Hurst is charged on warrant issued at Greymouth, New Zealand, with the embezzlement of £5 and other moneys the property of the Paroa District Road Board, at Paroa, county of Westland, on the 25th October 1870. He is native of the north of Ireland, a civil engineer, aged 32 years, 5 feet 10 inches high, but does not look so tall, grey eyes, short brown hair, short sandy whiskers round and under chin, and rather prominent cheek bones. He was employed as secretary and collector to the Paroa Road Board at the time he absconded; was formerly correspondent of the London Times and afterwards proprietor of the Freeman newspaper. He is believed to be in or near Melbourne. - 1st May, 1871. This offender is said to have been employed by the Tasmanian Government in the Survey Department, probably in the Western districts, and may make for that place.
1877: New Town Public School
John Hurst's son, born in 1868 as William Nevin Tatlow Hurst, dropped the middle name "Tatlow" from all official documents, and as early as 1877. Enrolled at the New Town Public School as William Nevin Hurst minus the middle name "Tatlow", he was awarded a prize as a fourth form student, published in the Mercury, 24th December 1877. He was nine years old.
Source: No heading]. (1877, December 24). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 2 Supplement: The Mercury Summary For Europe. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page795155
In same year, on May 3rd 1877, William Nevin Hurst's unmarried aunt, Mary Hurst, sister of surveyor John Hurst, was a witness at the marriage of Mary Anne Nevin, Thomas Nevin's only surviving sister, to mariner John Carr at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley. Mary Anne Nevin was a school teacher who had applied to the Education Board in 1865 to establish a school at Kangaroo Valley with the support of Morton Allport. William Nevin Hurst may have been one of her pupils at either school. Thomas Nevin photographed the New Town Public School on several occasions in the early 1870s, printing his images as a series of stereographs (TMAG collection).
Marriage of Mary Anne Nevin to John Carr, 3 May 1877
Witnesses: John Nevin snr, John Nevin jnr, Mary Sophia Day and Mary Hurst
TAHO NAME_INDEXES:884210
Resource RGD37/1/36 no 359
Stereograph of the New Town Public School
Photographer: Thos Nevin New Town ca. 1870
Photos recto and verso copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2014-2015
Taken at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 10 November 2014
TMAG Ref: Q1987.392
1899: Marriage of Wm Nevin Tatlow Hurst
In retrospect, when photographer Thomas J. Nevin registered the birth of William Nevin Tatlow Hurst in May 1868, he might have suspected that the child would follow in his grandfather's and father's footsteps, first as a draughtsman, then surveyor, and becoming eventually the Tasmanian Surveyor-General and Secretary for Lands. William Nevin Tatlow Hurst married Lucie Evelyn Elizabeth Foster, hospital nurse, exactly 31 years to the day he was born, i.e. on his 31st birthday, 11th April 1899 at St John's Church, New Town.
Tasmanian Names Index (TAHO)
Name: Hurst, William Nevin Tatlow
Record Type: Marriages
Gender: Male
Age:31
Spouse: Foster, Lucie Evelyn Elizth
Gender: Female
Age: 27
Date of marriage: 11 Apr 1899
Registered: Hobart
Registration year: 1899
Document ID: NAME_INDEXES:924661
Resource RGD37/1/61 no 273
An extensive collection of documents relating to the father John Hurst and son William Nevin Tatlow Hurst is held at the University of Tasmania, at this link:
A collection of pamphlets articles and newspaper cuttings compiled by William Nevin Hurst (1868 - 1947) and notes made by him on topics of historical interest. William Nevin Hurst was a draughtsman and Secretary for Lands. He was the son of John Hurst a surveyor on the North West Coast. RS.23
Source: Tasmanian Sureveyors-General Honour Board
The Lyons Labor Government 1920s (Joseph Lyons front seated centre)
William Nevin Hurst, seated, second last from viewer's right: incorrectly identified as J. Hurst
Title: Photograph - Labor members of Parliament - M O'Keefe, J Cleary, P Kelly, A Lawson, C Culley, W. Shoobridge, JA Guy, J Belton, JA Lyons, AG Ogilvie, J Hurst and G Becker
ADRI: PH30-1-223
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania
The Cemetery Headstone
The family relationship claimed by fine arts dealer Nevin Hurst to the family of of photographer Thomas J. Nevin is based in part on the wording on the gravestone relating to Eliza Hurst as the sister of John Nevin snr, and therefore an aunt of Thomas J. Nevin. Mary Hurst was listed as her daughter. The wording is as follows:
In Loving Memory of Eliza Widow of the late James Hurst of Grey-Abbey, Co. Down Ireland Born July 12th 1814 Died Sept 19th 1902...
Also Mary Hurst Daughter of the Above died 27th October 1925 Aged 86 years
Also Louisa Hurst Widow of John Hurst born at Westbury 27th May 1841 Died 18th November 192?
Also Edith Rhoda Hurst only daughter of John and Louisa Hurst died 25th January 1926 Aged 54 years
Also William Nevin Tatlow Hurst ISO son of John & Louisa Born April 11, 1868 Died 24 Dec 1946
Also Lucie Evelyn Hurst beloved Wife of Above Born 20 June 1868 Died 11 Feb 1948
The Hurst family headstone, Cornelian Bay
Emailed to this blog courtesy of Nevin Hurst 2010
Copyright Gravesites of Tasmania
Eliza Hurst died in 1902.
Death of Eliza Hurst, 89 yrs old, at her residence Forster St. New Town, Mercury 20 Sept 1902
Mary Jane Hurst (1839-1925)
Surveyor John Hurst's sister, Mary Hurst, born at Grey Abbey, County Down, Ireland, (1839-1925) died at her nephew's house (i.e. William Nevin Tatlow Hurst's home), 30 Cross Street, New Town, Tasmania. She apparently never married, or at least, retained her maiden name through to her death. She was a signatory witness at the marriage of Thomas Nevin's sister, Mary Anne Nevin to John Carr on 3rd May 1877 at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley, New Town, now Lenah Valley (Ref: RGD37/1/36 no 359. Tasmanian Names Index).
TRANSCRIPT
DEATHSSource: Family Notices. (1925, October 28). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 1. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29117778
HURST.-On October 27, 1925, at the residence of her nephew. Mr. W. N. Hurst, 30 Cross-street, New Town,- Mary Hurst, a native of the County Down, Ireland, in her 80th year. No flowers.
Photographer Thomas J. Nevin may never have envisaged the persistence of his surname NEVIN as a Hurst family middle name well into the second generation when he registered the birth of William Nevin Tatlow Hurst in May 1868 for surveyor John Hurst and wife Louisa Tatlow Hurst. Their son William Nevin Tatlow Hurst who married Lucie Evelyn Elizabeth Foster, hospital nurse, exactly 31 years to the day he was born, i.e. on his 31st birthday, 11th April 1899 at St John's Church, New Town, had an only son whom they named David Nevin Hurst. He married Pearl Isobel Childs on May 18, 1932 at St. John's Church, New Town. David and Pearl Hurst were the parents of Masterpiece gallery owner, (William) Nevin Hurst (1934 - 2023), who used his middle name Nevin as his Christian or forename.
TRANSCRIPT
MARRIAGESSource: Family Notices. (1932, October 1). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 1.
HURST—CHILDS.— On May 18, 1932, at St. John's Church, New Town by the Rev. C. Corvan, David Nevin [i.e. HURST], only son of Mr. and Mrs. W. N. Hurst, of New Town, to Pearl Isobel, eldest daughter of Mrs. and the late W. B. Childs, of Old Beach.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article24711352
Plaque in memory of William Nevin Tatlow Hurst and Lucie Evelyn Hurst
Interior wall, St Johns Church, New Town Tasmania
Photo copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2015 ARR
Nevin Street South Hobart
John Hurst, son of Irish surveyor James Hurst, friend and relative of the Nevin family of Kangaroo Valley, was a surveyor in civil service, but whether he or his son William Nevin Hurst, who became the Tasmanian Surveyor-General, named this street in South Hobart after the Nevin family of Kangaroo Valley is yet to be determined. See this article, Nevin Street and the Cascades Prison for Males.
No Through Road. Nevin St. South Hobart adjacent to the Cascades Prison.
Photo copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2011 ARR
RELATED POSTS main weblog