Thomas J. Nevin | Tasmanian Photographer: Cascades

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Constable John Nevin at Trucanini's funeral 1876

Constable John Nevin (1852-1891), brother of photographer Thomas J. Nevin, joined the civil service as an 18 year old in 1870 and was stationed at the Cascades Gaol and Reformatory until transferred to the Hobart Gaol in 1877. He was on duty at the burial of Trucanini, regarded in that era as the "last Tasmanian Aboriginal", on 10th-11th May 1876 at the Cascades cemetery. Located on a patch of ground -"a vacant spot opposite the Cascades" as the press described it (South Australian Register 12 May 1876) - that patch is now identified as No. 2, Nevin Street (Tasmanian Heritage Council 2007).

Constable W. John (Jack) Nevin ca 1874-6
Photographed by his brother Thomas J. Nevin
Copyright © KLW NFC Imprint and Private Collection (Shelverton family) 2006 ARR.

Trucanini [var. Truganini] died on 8th May, 1876, aged 73 years. Her body was guarded by a constable at the city hospital "to prevent any mutilation or snatching" until just after 11pm on Wednesday evening, 10th May 1876 when she was secretly removed from the hospital and transported personally to the Cascades by the Superintendent of the Cascades Gaol and Reformatory, the much reviled former Commandant of the Port Arthur prison, A. H. Boyd. He had suddenly appeared at the hospital and demanded her body be handed over to him, much to the surprise of staff on duty and the undertaker next day who arrived and left with an empty coffin. During the long night of Wednesday May 10th and the morning of Thursday May 11th until the time of her burial at midday, Trucanini's body, now at rest in the Cascades Chapel, was guarded by Constable John Nevin. The Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Calder, did not arrive till the proceedings were over.

Above: Trucanini (var: Truganini) is seated here in this reproduction on glass by Anson's Photographs ca. 1880 of an original photograph attributed to C. A. Woolley taken in 1866.
The verso below bears Anson's label and the handwritten inscription "Last Aborigines of Tasmania":

Detail of portrait: Trucanini's hands

The verso of this portrait bears (John) Anson's label and the handwritten inscription "Last Aborigines of Tasmania"
Copyright all photos © KLW NFC Imprint & The Private Collection of John and Robyn McCullagh 2007 ARR

Public Outrage at Government deception
The public expected a funeral procession would take place at noon, and that a hearse carrying Trucanini's body would proceed from the hospital where a crowd waited, not knowing they had been deceived. This angry report appeared in the Mercury the following day, 12th May (full transcript below), and another which attempted an explanation, on the 13th May 1876.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

FUNERAL OF QUEEN TRUCANINI. (1876, May 12). The Mercury

The remains of the last of the original inhabitants of Tasmania were yesterday consigned to their final resting-place, without any of that ostentatious display which took place at the burial of King Billy. Whatever difference of opinion there may be on the point whether there ought to have been any pageantry on so important an occasion, there can be no doubt that the Government, in their ostensible desire to interdict any such scandal as that which stirred up public indignation in 1869, have laid themselves open to blame, and to a feeling on the part of the public that they were simply playing into the hands of the Royal Society, which body was so anxious to obtain possession of the remains. Let the facts speak for them- selves. Trucanini died early on Monday afternoon, and her body was at once removed to the hospital, a constable being specially told off to watch over it, and prevent any snatching or mutilation. There was, of course, considerable anxiety felt as to where the remains were to be deposited, and when the funeral was to take place ; but it was Wednesday night before the Press was made acquainted with the decision of the Government, and not till yesterday morning was the information conveyed to the public. It was then done in such a manner as clearly to show that an attempt was to be made to deceive the public. The note from the Colonial Secretary, which appeared in yesterday's issue, after stating that the Government had refused the body to the Royal Society, ran thus :—"The Government have given orders for the decent interment of the corpse ; but, to prevent a recurrence of the unseemly scenes which were enacted in March, 1869, it has been deemed expedient to inter the body at the Cascades, in the vacant spot immediately in front of the chapel. The funeral will take place at noon to-morrow." The inference drawn from such information, when it was well-known that the body was at the hospital, was that the funeral would take place from that institution at noon, and that there would be a hearse, with the usual procession of mourners ; for there were many citizens who, prompted by a desire to show respect to the deceased, would have followed her remains. Towards noon numerous inquiries were made at the hospital, and up to one o'clock people were standing at street corners on the route which it was thought the cortége would take, waiting to see it pass ; but the Government had taken as much pains as possible to deceive them. It appears that at 11 o'clock on Wednesday night, Mr. A. H. Boyd, Superintendent of the Cascades Gaol and Reformatory, went to the hospital, armed with an authority from the Government, and demanded the body of the deceased Queen. It was, of course, given up, though the officials were taken completely by surprise, and evidently had never dreamt that any such demand would have been made upon them at that unseemly hour. At all events, the body was placed in the cart, and in the dead of the night, when all good citizens had retired to rest, it was borne through the streets of the city up to the Cascades institution. In this way, by a stratagem for which there was not the least necessity, and which does no credit to the Government, was the public frustrated in their desire to see proper respect paid to the last member of a now extinct race. To show how secret this removal of the remains was, and the duplicity which it was considered necessary should be practised, no intimation of it was conveyed to the undertaker, Mr. Hamilton. He, therefore, acting on instructions received, went to the hospital yesterday morning with the coffin, and was as much surprised as anyone when he found what had taken place. There is no palliation for the conduct of the Government in this matter. The remains were sufficiently protected by the presence of a constable, and the deliberate deception practised upon the public in the way we have described merits the strongest condemnation.

The funeral would have rejoiced the hearts of those who are strenuously advocating a reform in all matters pertaining to the burial of the dead. It was of the simplest character imaginable, entirely devoid of all that useless paraphernalia, all those expensive and showy trappings, which in these times are looked upon as emblems of sorrow and respect for the deceased. In the little Protestant chapel at the Cascades Reformatory, the body of "our native Queen" lay stiff and cold in the plainest of coffins ; no ornamentation of any kind, with the except of the usual silver plate, being upon it. The sombre black contrasted with the white shroud, which, when turned back, revealed the dusky features of her whose life was one romance. We have heard some doubts expressed as to whether the coffin really contained the remains of Trucanini—doubts quite excusable, remembering the mutilation of King Billy and the conduct of the Government on this occasion—but our readers may rest assured on that point. Previous to the lid being screwed down several spectators, our reporter among the rest, were shown the face of the deceased Queen, and one lady, of eccentric habits, and who assumes to herself a title as high as that of poor Trucanini, touched the face, as if to make "assurance doubly sure." All this time the bell in the reformatory yard was tolling, and as none of the inmates of the institution, a few of the officials and servants excepted, were to be seen in the spacious enclosure, a death-like silence pervaded the place. The coffin screwed down, the spectators assembled in the chapel. They did not number, including some children, more than twenty-five. Among those present was the Hon. A. Kennerley, Premier ; the Hon. G. Gilmore, Colonial Secretary ; the Ven. Archdeacon Davies, Rev. W. W. Spicer, Mr. J. W. Graves, Dr. Lewis, Mr. Whitcombe, Mr. Gravenor, Mr. A. H. Boyd, etc. The Rev. Canon Parsons read the beautiful burial service of the Church of England, commencing "I am the resurrection and the life," and after the Psalm and the Lesson, the coffin was carried out of the chapel and placed over a grave that had been dug just in front of the door, all present following and assembling round the grave. The coffin having been lowered, the officiating clergyman read those solemn words beginning "Man that is born of a woman," etc., and committed "our dear departed sister" to the grave in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. Before it was placed in the grave, Mr. Gravenor, of New Town, who mixed as much with the natives in years gone by as any one now living, touched the coffin and uttered some native word, very much like farewell. After the ceremony was over Mr. Graves threw a sprig of heliocrysum (Graves-eye) into the grave ; and when just about to leave, an officer came up with a pretty bunch of native flowers and berries, kindly sent by Mrs. Dandridge, with whom Trucanini lived for the long period of twenty years, and in whose house she died. The bunch was handed to Mr. Boyd, who passed it to Mr. Graves, and that gentleman deposited it on the coffin. The inscription on the coffin was simply : "Trucanini. Died 8th May, 1876. Aged 73 years." There is no doubt that the number of spectators would have been much larger had the arrangements been thoroughly understood. The invitation of the Government to "any friends and sympathisers" reads now like a huge joke, and, under the circumstances, might well have been omitted. Among those who were specially anxious to be present was Mr. Calder, the Sergeant-at Arms, but he did not arrive till the proceedings were over. We may mention, to satisfy some doubts, that Trucanini was baptised at Oyster Cove by Bishop Nixon. We understand that a monument of some kind is to be erected over the grave, and Mr. Graves has been requested to write an epitaph for it. He has willingly undertaken the task, and proposes that it shall be inscribed in both the English and native languages.

Source: FUNERAL OF QUEEN TRUCANINI. (1876, May 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 2. Retrieved January 24, 2014, from https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8944992

READ THE ARTICLE of 12 May 1876 here [pdf]
READ THE ARTICLE of 13 May 1876 here [pdf]

The Memorial
Exactly 100 years after her burial, Trucanini was cremated. Her ashes were scattered in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel off the Neck beach, and a memorial was erected in Truganini Park, Mt Nelson, on 8th May, 1976.

Source: ABC Radio National "Hindsight". Truganini, bushranger 12/4/2012
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/truganini-bushranger/3178510

Waxwork, Trucanini, Madame Tussaud's, Darling Harbour, Sydney
Photo copyright © KLW NFC 2012 ARR

The Cascades Prison for Males ca. 1880
Source: University of Tasmania ePrints "Cascades Factory" No's 2-4

RELATED POSTS

Nevin Street and the Cascades Prison for Males 1870s-1880s

CONSTABLE JOHN NEVIN civil service 1870-1891
CASCADES GAOL for MALES 1870s
KANGAROO VALLEY to CASCADES walking tracks
NEVIN Street, South Hobart

Constable W.John Nevin (1852-1891), younger brother of photographer Thomas J. Nevin (known as Jack to the family), entered the civil service from his eighteenth birthday in 1870 in the capacity of warder at the "Cascade Asylum" according to his obituary. It was formerly known as the Cascades Female Factory, South Hobart, but by 1869 the site housed the Invalid Depot, the Boys Reformatory Training School and the Cascades Gaol for Males. Jack Nevin continued service there until he was transferred to the Hobart Gaol, Campbell Street in 1877. He remained in service on salary in administration as gaol messenger, wardsman and photographer until his death from typhoid fever in 1891, aged 39 yrs, while resident at the gaol. His length of service with H. M. Prisons was twenty-one years. According to his obituary published in the Mercury on 18th June 1891, he was a well-respected civil servant who left no family but a large circle of friends.

Jack Nevin was sixteen years old in January 1868 when he posed for this photograph taken by his brother Thomas in the studio at the City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town. It was one of several photographs of children and young adults taken by Thomas J. Nevin in partnership with Robert Smith during the Royal visit to Hobart of Queen Victoria's second son, Prince Alfred, on board HMS Galatea.

Subject: William John Nevin (1852-1891), known as Jack to the family;
also known as Constable John Nevin from 1870-1891
Photographers: Thomas J. Nevin (older brother) and Robert Smith
Location and Date: 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart, Tasmania, January 1868.
Details: verso stamped with Royal insignia of three feathers, coronet and Ich Dien;"From Nevin & Smith late Bock's, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town"
Source: Private Collection, Sydney Rare Books Auction, June 2019

In the constabulary

Signature of W. J. Nevin on document below:
Previous employment with police: nine months at Gaol Males Cascades from Aug 1875 to April 1876

W.J. Nevin - renewed applications to join the Constabulary Tasmania 1877 and 1881
Records Courtesy State Library of Tasmania

While a constable at the Cascade Gaol for Males, John Nevin was involved in an incident reported in the Mercury, 27 October 1875:

Constable John Nevin, Mercury, 27 October 1875.

TRANSCRIPT

CITY POLICE COURT
Tuesday 26th October, 1875
Before Mr. Tarleton, Police Magistrate
PEACE DISTURBERS. - Robert Evans and William Inman were charged by Constable Pearce, of the Cascades, with having disturbed the peace in Upper Macquarie-street on the 24th inst. The defendants pleaded "not guilty". Constables Pearce and Nevin, of the Cascades, proved that the defendants were throwing stones and making a disturbance. The Police Magistrate said that in Upper Macquarie-street there existed the roughest of lads in Hobart Town. He would sentence both defendants to 14 days' imprisonment, and warn them that on proof of a second they would probably be birched.

This photograph of Jack (William John) Nevin taken in his mature years, ca. mid 1880s, by his brother Thomas J. Nevin, appears to be only one to have surfaced, at least in family collections to date. He is not to be confused with Thomas and Elizabeth Rachel Nevin's son by the same name, William John Nevin (1878-1927) who died prematurely in a cart accident.

Constable John (W. J.) Nevin ca. mid 1880s.
Photo taken by his brother Thomas Nevin
Copyright © KLW NFC Imprint & Private Collection 2009 ARR. Watermarked.

Adjacent to the Cascades Gaol for Males in the 1870s and leading directly up the hill behind it was a wide track, now a "No Through Road" named "Nevin Street". On the left, ascending the hill going northwest, and located at an address now called No. 2 Nevin Street, was a cemetery associated with the prison from its days as a Female Factory - a prison for females (1850s) - to its last uses as an invalid depot, orphanage, prison and reformatory (1870s onwards). Thereafter, the deceased were moved to the Cornelian Bay Cemetery. Surrounding parcels of land were sold to a milkman by the government in 1908. Constable John Nevin was on duty at the Cascades on 11th May 1876 when the Government buried Trucanini there, considered in her time as one of the last Tasmanian Aborigines.

The cemetery site itself at No. 2 Nevin St is vacant, however, marked as heritage interest. This report was compiled by the Tasmanian Heritage Council on 27 November 2007:

The location of the graveyard is shown on two historical plans. A c.1859 plan of the Female Factory Reserve shows the graveyard to the northwest of Yard 5 as a roughly triangular shaped parcel of ground (AOT, PWD 266/382). An 1884 survey locates a morgue building on what was later to become Syme Street. It also locates nine graves orientated east-west, along the eastern boundary of the graveyard (LO, Hobart 65, 90469). Private residential development from the mid- to-late twentieth century occupies most of the place today. The housing is not considered to be of State heritage significance. Described in The Mercury in 1873 as ‘a pretty little green patch of three-quarters of an acres ... and has no denominational subdivision. Prisoners, paupers and juvenile offenders, of all creeds, find a resting place in the same spot, and a few graves are marked with neat little crosses erected by the friends or relations of those buried there’.

From Kangaroo Valley to the Cascades Gaol, 1870s
The track or road was formally named Nevin Street at a date yet to be confirmed (at Lands and Titles Office?). The track leading to it was used by walking clubs extensively. In 1935, this map was issued by the Hobart Walkers' Club, which shows a road in heavy outline leading up from the prison, leading northwest up McRobies Gully.

Title: Mt. Wellington Park map of roads, tracks, etc. / [compiled by] V. W. Hodgman
Creator: Hobart Walking Club (Tas.)
Map data: Scale unknown
Publisher: 1935
Description: 1 map ; 17 1/2 inches in diameter (part col.), rolled
Format: Map
ADRI: AUTAS001131821340
Source: Tasmaniana Library

Detail of Hobart Walkers Map 1935 showing relative positions of the Nevin farm next to the Lady Franklin Museum and the two possible routes taken across country by Constable Nevin to the Cascades Gaol for Males in 1875.

The 1935 Hobart Walkers Club map (detail above) shows two very distinct routes to the southeast which John Nevin might have chosen in the 1870s on his journey from the family farm at Kangaroo Valley, situated next to the Lady Franklin Museum where Thomas and John's father John Nevin snr had built their cottage. Whether on foot or horseback, the first and longer route he could have taken was along Kangaroo Valley road, alternatively titled Lenah Valley Road by 1922, to the waterhole and the cabin named by the Old Hobartians (alumni of Hobart High School) as their own by 1935. He would then veer south on the path to the New Town Falls, crossing Brushy Creek until arriving at the edge of a very steep ravine . Once there, he would join the McRobies track until arriving at the Hobart Rivulet, passing below the Cascades Brewery. The track, much wider at that point, passed by the cemetery, and ended directly opposite the Cascades Prison.

McRobies Gully Postcard ca. 1900s
TAHO Ref: NS8691373

Alternatively, he could have proceeded from the Museum along Brushy creek road a short way, then crossed onto a track which joined Pottery Road running bedside the creek, and joining another track until he reached the Slides. Descending a steep hill side on another short track adjacent to another creek led him onto the McRobies gully track which widened into a roadway, ending adjacent to the wall of the Cascades Gaol. It therefore seems likely that the present Nevin Street was originally the track leading up McRobies Gully and the path Constable John Nevin used when coming and going to and from work at the Cascades Prison for Males from 1870 to 1877.

When Constable John Nevin renewed his contract and term of service in 1881 with H. M. Prisons Department, he was still living at home with his parents in the house built by his father on the property at Kangaroo Valley, which was situated on land adjacent to the Lady Franklin Museum and the Wesleyan Chapel and school house where his father John Nevin taught children by day and adult males by night. He would have travelled via the city streets to the Hobart Gaol in Campbell St. by 1881, eventually taking up residence there. He was active in assisting his brother in photographic sessions both at the Hobart Gaol and adjoining Supreme Court. His employment was listed as salaried in administration and resident at the Campbell St Gaol on the electoral roll of 1884, and listed again as "gaol messenger" in residence when he died suddenly of typhoid fever in 1891.

Signature of Wm. John Nevin, Kangaroo Valley, 24th November 1881.

Surveyor's Map showing Hobart Gaol 1887 (TAHO)

As government contractor to the Lands and Survey Dept. from 1868, Thomas J. Nevin snr, took many photographs on the tracks leading from Kangaroo Valley across to the waterfall, Brushy Creek, the reservoir waterworks, and Hobart rivulet, mostly produced with the dual purpose of providing documentation of works and weather damage in local landscapes as well as supplying local and intercolonial visitors with commercial stereographs. These photographs (below) were taken around the same years as Constable John Nevin's second attestation, 1881, to service at the Hobart Gaol, Campbell Street. They are from the State Library of Tasmania's Pretyman Collection.

Title: Photograph - Group on walking track in bush setting
Description: 1 photographic print
Format: Photograph
ADRI: NS1013-1-808
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania
Series: Photographs and Glass Plate Negatives Collected by E R Pretyman, 1870 - 1930 (NS1013)

Cascades Prison for Males
TAHO Ref: NS1013145 (n.s. n.d.) This photo shows the track that is Nevin St rising up to the right

Cascades Prison for Males
TAHO Ref: NS1013146 . This photo was taken from Nevin St. Beattie print, no date.

Cascades Prison for Males
TAHO Ref: NS1013148 (n.s. n.d.)

The naming of Nevin Street may well have been a decision taken by surveyor John Hurst arising from the historical ties of his father, James Hurst, also a surveyor, and John Nevin snr's family in Ireland, reflected in their respective family friendships in Tasmania. For example, Thomas J. Nevin acted as informant on the birth registration of surveyor John Hurst's son, William Nevin Tatlow Hurst in 1868 while John Hurst was working elsewhere in the state. This was the first use of the name "Nevin" by the Hurst family in Tasmania. On another family occasion, John Hurst's mother Eliza Hurst was a signatory witness to the marriage registration of Thomas and Jack Nevin's sister Mary Ann Nevin to John Carr at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley in 1877. The naming of Nevin Street by a family of surveyors connected to the family of brothers Thomas and Jack Nevin, is therefore a likely outcome of a shared family history.

Top: Looking northwest towards Nevin St from the prison wall
Bottom: Looking southeast in the opposite direction towards Cascades Road
Photos copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2011 ARR

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

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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 was built on the traditional lands, nipaluna/Hobart, 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 people of the Australian Capital Territory 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 19th Anniversary 2005-2024

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NINETEEN YEARS ago (before 2005 actually) we started blogging about Tasmanian photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923). We look forward to another year or so as the project draws closer to completion. Contributions and donations are most welcome, and many thanks for your involvement.

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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