Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch at Thomas J. Nevin's studio ca. 1867-1871

Photographers Alfred BOCK, Thomas J. NEVIN, and H. H. BAILY
Portraits of Thomas and Sarah (Rothwell) CROUCH 1860s-1870s, and Robert Stanton ROTHWELL ca. 1870
SHOOBRIDGE estate and grave sites, West Hobart, Tasmania



Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch (1806-1876), cdv by Thomas J. Nevin, ca. 1867-1871
Copyright © KLW NFC Imprint Private Collection 2026

Alfred Bock's sennotypes of Thomas and Sarah Crouch
Alfred K. Bock (1835 -1920) inherited his father Thomas Bock's daguerreotype establishment at 22 Campbell Street Hobart Town in April 1855 and announced his own photographic business. By July 1855 he had moved to Elliston's premises at 78 Liverpool Street, formerly occupied by the photographers Duryea and McDonald where he built a "Crystal Palace" studio and purchased photographic equipment from Ross of London. Financial difficulties ensued, and Bock moved several times.

In 1857 Alfred Bock was at 18 Macquarie Street. But on 6th February, 1858, he was insolvent. Later that year, Bock re-established himself at 140 Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town - a business he called The City Photographic Establishment - and stayed there until 1865 when he was again declared insolvent (Kerr, ed. 1992: 77-78). In late May 1865, Alfred Bock's wife gave birth to a daughter (Mercury, 23 May 1865). This event too may have precipitated Bock's decision to sell up and leave Tasmania.

Financially bruised by a dispute with photographer Henry Frith about the origins and rights to the sennotype process, the stock-in-trade of Bock's studio at the City Photographic Establishment was advertised at auction on August 2nd, 1865. Thomas J. Nevin bought the lease of the studio, the shop, the stock of negatives, camera equipment, backdrops and furniture, including the glass house/gallery installed at the end of the cart path adjacent to the studio, listed as 138½ Elizabeth St. on valuation rolls.

These two fine portraits of Thomas J. Crouch and his wife Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch were produced by Alfred Bock at the City Photographic Establishment in the early 1860s using the method of assemblage called the sennotype process which consisted of two albumen prints sandwiched under glass, the top one waxed for transparency and usually hand-coloured, resulting in blacker shadows and greater tonal range.



Left: Under-Sheriff Thomas. J. Crouch (1805-1890)
Right: Sarah Crouch (1806-1876) nee Rothwell
Sennotypes by Alfred Bock ca 1860
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection

Biographical Notes: Sarah and Thomas Crouch
Biographical Notes by Peter Bolger
Australian Dictionary of Biography
Link: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/crouch-george-stanton-3346

Thomas James Crouch (1805-1890), under-sheriff, was born on 22 October 1805 in London, the eldest son of James Crouch of Hertfordshire and his wife Sarah, née Marston, of Shropshire. His parents had moved to London before their marriage in 1804 at St George's, Hanover Square, and his father was, among other business projects, proprietor of public baths in Cannon Street. Thomas's education at various small city schools was interrupted by ill health and convalescence at Worthing and Barmouth, and he later became clerk to a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. He was friendly with Dudley Fereday, who was appointed sheriff of Van Diemen's Land. Crouch agreed to become his clerk and arrived at Hobart Town in the Phoenix in January 1825. He was a successful clerk in various commissariat offices, specializing in legal matters until he was appointed under-sheriff in 1836; he held the post until he retired on a pension in 1868.

On 20 February 1832 at St David's Cathedral Crouch married Sarah Rothwell, from Limehouse, London, whom he had met when she passed through Hobart as governess to the family of Rev. Joseph Orton. The Crouch family had been Anglican but in 1826 Thomas had become attached to the Wesleyan Methodists and was an active Sunday school teacher. Sarah was also a Wesleyan but their cottage became the lodgings of the missionaries James Backhouse and George Washington Walker, and she adopted Quaker manners and attended their meetings. Crouch helped to initiate the schools of the Hobart Wesleyan circuit and was a trustee of the Melville Street Church for fifty-eight years. With James Bonwick and G. W. Walker he organized the first local temperance society in 1833 and in 1843 signed the pledge. He was a prominent founder of the Tasmanian Temperance Alliance and chaired its 34th annual meeting on the evening of his death on 28 May 1890. He was also a founder of the Hobart Town Benevolent Society in 1860, a committee member for thirty years and its secretary for seventeen years. For many his greatest claim to fame was his part in the recognition and capture of Martin Cash in Hobart in 1843.

Crouch's wife [Sarah Crouch], after seven years of paralysis, died on 16 January 1876 in her seventieth year. She remained loyal to the Society of Friends and was buried in their ground at Providence Valley. Sarah had shared in her husband's religious and temperance activities, organized a female petition for a Maine Liquor Law in the colony and another to forestall Sunday licensing, and served on the committees of the Maternal and Dorcas Society and of various societies such as the Van Diemen's Land Asylum for the Protection of Destitute and Unfortunate Females, which Walker had promoted in 1848. She was one of the Ladies Visiting Committee which each week inspected female paupers at New Town, Cascades and the Brickfields, and was reputed to have kept her own dispensary where she gave medicines to the needy. Perhaps her greatest contribution to the welfare of Hobart poor was her Servants' Home in High Street, which only closed in her final illness.

Crouch and his wife had at least eight children, most of whom died in childhood. One daughter, Mary, was married to Robert S. Caseley, Wesleyan minister in South Australia in 1863, and another, Ann, to Robert Shoobridge in 1871. The eldest son, Thomas James [Crouch], became an architect, designing among other work the General Post Office in Melbourne; there he died on 4 December 1889.

The second son, George Stanton [Crouch] (b. 1 May 1834), was educated like his brother at Bonwick's and Hutchins Schools. They were active in Wesleyan Sabbath school and temperance work at St Kilda after failing at the diggings. George was a farmer at Kangaroo Valley, near Hobart, from 1854 until 1863 when he sailed with his wife for New Zealand. His job at Invercargill as clerk and book-keeper at the Southland News ended in 1870 when he became part-owner of both it and its rival, the Southland Times. In these years he advocated total abstinence and was a prominent Wesleyan. He returned to Hobart in 1871 and ran an auctioneer's salesroom until 1905. In 1883 he was elected alderman of the City of Hobart and served for twelve years, being mayor in 1892, but was prevented from becoming a justice of the peace by his Quaker-like refusal to take the oath. He gained ambivalent repute as the 'Teetotal Mayor' and startled Saturday night revellers by regular inspections of public houses, always with a police bodyguard... [extract]

Source: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/crouch-george-stanton-3346

The Rothwell and Crouch families were closely involved with the operations of the Sheriff's Office at the Hobart Gaol from the 1830s to the 1880s. Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch's brother, John Rothwell (1812-1885) gained the position of second clerk to the Sheriff in 1836 through her husband's influence, advancing by degrees until he was appointed chief clerk in 1841 and Under-Sheriff in 1868 on the retirement of brother-in-law Thomas J. Crouch, a position he held until retirement, 71 years old, in 1883, having served the office with "fidelity and justice" under Judges Pedder, Montagu, Fleming, Home, Smith, and Dobson, according to his Obituary in the Mercury, 19 Sept 1885. He supervised the execution of Job Smith aka Campbell on 31st May, 1875, at the Hobart Gaol; Thomas J. Nevin's photogaph taken at his only sitting with Job Smith is extant in several public collections, one was even hand-tinted, another was poorly reprinted in the 20th century.

In 1838 John Rothwell married Celia Rebecca Smith in Hobart. Her sister Sarah Anson (d. 1858) was the mother of Hobart photographers Joshua (b. 1821) and John (b. 1835) Anson. John and Celia Rothwell had a large family of children (15 are listed at familysearch.org), and apart from their first-born daughter Sarah who died in 1924, their eighth child, son Robert Stanton Rothwell (1850-1902), Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch's nephew in effect, was the last of their sons still living by 1900. He died of neurosyphilis in 1902 at the New Norfolk Lunatic Asylum. When, as a young man barely 20 years old, he visited the studio of T. D. Webb, St. John's Street, Launceston, Tasmania to be photographed wearing his finest (ca.1870), he dedicated his portrait to Miss Ellen Bayles of Ross, signing it verso "With R.S.R.'s compliments, to Ms E. Bayles, Auburn, Ross".

If the history of ownership of his portrait (below) could be established beyond the 1870s when Ellen Bayles first placed it her family album, some light might be shed as to why this young man, Robert Stanton Rothwell was misidentified by its vendor at Leski's auction (Melbourne) in May 2026 as the brother of photographer Thomas J. Nevin, William John Nevin (1852-1891). While both Nevin brothers worked at the Hobart Gaol from the early 1870s with Under-Sheriff John Rothwell - Thomas as photographer of prisoners who were received, incarcerated and discharged from Supreme Court convictions, and his brother Constable John (W. J. aka Jack to the family) Nevin as warder and messenger - and while the Rothwell, Crouch and Nevin families shared many connections including their respective farms at Kangaroo Valley (Hobart), their Wesleyan faith, Lodge membership and civil service, there is nothing about this carte-de-visite which would invite such a misidentification (more to come in a future post).





Portrait of Robert Stanton Rothwell by T. D. Webb, Launceston, Tasmania ca. 1870
Inscribed verso "With R.S.R.'s compliments, to Ms E. Bayles, Auburn, Ross"
Misidentified by vendor at auction (Leski's May 2026) as William John Nevin, brother of photographer T. J. Nevin.
Purchased from Leski's (Melb) for © KLW NFC Imprint Private Collection, 31 May 2026.

Departure of Alfred Bock to Victoria



Alfred Bock's trade advertisement in Walch's Tasmanian Almanac, 1864

The City Photographic Establishment and the house next door were premises consisting of two house-and-shop properties owned by Abraham Biggs snr at 138-140 Elizabeth St. Hobart, They were still "unfinished" in 1853 according to the Hobart Valuation Rolls. By 1854 Biggs was listed as the proprietor with his son, builder Abraham Edwin Biggs. By 1857 they had let the premises at 140 Elizabeth St. to photographer Alfred Bock which he operated as a studio with his (step) brother William Bock until 1865. On Alfred Bock's departure to Victoria, commercial photographer and government contractor Thomas J. Nevin continued the business with the firm's name, The City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town. He operated the studio in partnership with Robert Smith under the business name of Nevin & Smith briefly between 1866-68, vacating the shop, residence, glass house and studio a decade later, in 1876, to take up his appointment in full-time civil service with residency at the Hobart Town Hall.

Photographer Thomas J. Nevin was a member of the Loyal United Brothers' Lodge and their official photographer. He was also an affiliate of the Benevolent Society and Wesleyan Church with senior members of the Crouch, Nevin and Genge families. Thomas' father John Nevin snr leased an acre of land from the Wesleyan Trustees of Ancanthe at Kangaroo Valley (Lenah Valley) from the early 1850s and remained there to his death in 1887. His daughter Rebecca Jane Nevin died there in 1865 and his wife Mary Ann (Dickson) Nevin died there in 1875. Eldest son Thomas James Nevin married Elizabeth Rachel Day at the Wesleyan Chapel there in 1871, and his only surviving daughter Mary Ann Nevin married John Carr there in 1877. John Nevin snr also taught class at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley in 1875. His second marriage in 1879 after the death of his wife in 1875 was to widow Martha (Genge) Salter, daughter of Wesleyan lay preacher William Genge of the Methodist Church and meeting rooms, Melville Street, Hobart. William Genge's death occasioned a poem written as a lament by John Nevin in 1881.

Thomas J. Nevin's portrait of Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch
Thomas J. Nevin stamped his mostly commonly used commercial studio backmark in blue ink on the verso of this carte-de-visite, his portrait of Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch, which would indicate she visited his studio sometime ca. 1867-1871. He used sepia or black ink on later portraits after 1872. See examples here of both backstamps in blue and black ink at the National Gallery of Victoria's collection of eleven (11) cdv's of Nevin's portraits donated by John McPhee in 2020.

Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch was experiencing the early effects of paralysis which would claim her life in 1876 when she visited Nevin's studio. His capture of her facial expression might have unintentionally betrayed the pain she was enduring, and not just from her illness. The tight whalebone corset she was wearing had completely flattened the natural line of her bosom, undoubtedly causing further discomfort.

This is an unusual photograph in that Thomas J. Nevin positioned the sitter closer to his camera than he otherwise seemed to prefer in sittings with women clients. His use of the newer lenses here, which allowed shorter focal range and a larger image of the face and hands without sacrificing clarity, became his trademark when he commenced the photographing of prisoners with Supreme Court convictions on government contract soon after Sarah Crouch's brother John Rothwell succeeded her husband Thomas J. Crouch to the position of Under-Sheriff. This photograph, the first to be printed off the glass negative and like many which Nevin produced at the Hobart Gaol of prisoners for inclusion on their rap sheets, was printed initially with the whole upper body visible. The next print, if requested, would have been the same image formatted as a carte-de-visite, framed in an oval mount, showing the face but not the hands. If this same image of Sarah Crouch was ever produced as a carte-de-visite, it has yet to surface in public or private collections.





Above: Portrait of Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch, cdv by Thomas J. Nevin, taken ca. 1867-1871
Item: Carte-de-visite on buff mount, sepia albumen print
Subject: Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch (1806-1876)
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Location: City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart
Verso studio stamp: [blue ink] T. Nevin, late A. Bock, City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart. Further copies can be obtained at any time.
Provenance: estate of the Late Alexander Renwick
Per Leski's Auctions, Melbourne, May 2026 online.
Copyright © KLW NFC Imprint Private Collection 2026

Thomas J. Nevin photographed prisoner George Leathley seated in similar fashion to Sarah Crouch. Both sat with sightlines deflected to right of frame, their faces turned to look past the photographer standing quite close to their left, and each with folded hands resting on their lap. He printed both photographs in rich sepia from the negative, but pasted the full upper-body print of Sarah Crouch to a plain mount, whereas his print of Leathley was produced in carte-de-visite format for police and prison records. One cdv was pasted to the prisoner's rap sheet, another was included in the Photo Books held at the Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall, and others were forwarded to regional and rural police stations wherever the prisoner was sent to work. Although Nevin's original negative taken in the one sitting in the early to mid 1870s was commonly used for further prints if the prisoner was again convicted after release (e.g. Leathley's No.14 printed 1872, reprint in 1874, No. 226), another sitting was required if the negative was too damaged, as was most likely the case with Nevin's second and quite different photograph of George Leathley taken on discharge in 1876.



Left: Prisoner George Leathley
Thomas Nevin's original print from his glass negative, 1874
Reprinted by John Watt Beattie on a panel for sale, 1916
Held at the QVMAG Ref: 1983_p_0163-0176

Right: Prisoner George Leathley No's. 14 and 226
National Library of Australia collection
Title: George Leathley, per ship Blundell
Creator: T. J. Nevin 1874.
Inscription: “Nos. 14 & 226”–On reverse
Taken at the National Library of Australia, Feb. 2015
Photo copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2016.

THE SERVANTS' HOME
Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch was a committee member of the Maternal and Dorcas Society when she sought subscriptions and donations for the establishment and on-going support of a home for servant girls in High Street, North Hobart. The street was renamed Tasma Street in 1921 to avoid duplication with High Street, Sandy Bay, named after the novelist Jessie Catherine Couvreur, nee Huybers (1848-97), whose pseudonym was "Tasma".

These notices were published in the press at the beginning of Sarah Crouch's campaign in September to November 1856.



Extract, full transcript below:

TRANSCRIPT

SERVANTS' HOME
SEVERAL Ladies having been long impressed with the desolate state of females occupying the sphere of domestic servants on leaving their situations while seeking others, the following ideas have been suggested: -
"That a society of ladies be formed, the design of which shall be to protect ALL lone female servants, and afford such advice as experience dictates and by judicious care and oversight prevent exposure to many evils which strangers in the colony are subject to; and also to provide a "Home" to ALL female servants willing to avail themselves of its privileges at a rate within the reach of their limited means. The "Home" will be conducted as much as possible in accordance with similar Institutions in London.

Such a home will preclude the necessity of the well-intentioned taking up their abode with persons whose object is gain to themselves, though it should be the destruction of their supporters.

With this view the ladies have taken a house in High-street, near the New Town Road (a respectable neighbourhood) at a very moderate rent, in which there is a sitting-room, with table requisites for the use of the inmates, and all necessary utensil for cooking, washing, &c - the dormitories furnished with beds, bedding, and everything necessary to the comfort of those desirous of placing themselves under the guardianship of the ladies.

The ladies feel the time has arrived when such an institute is required, and will be valued in town and country, both by servants and employers. By this provision, when it is known in England and elsewhere, the ladies believe encouragement will be given to the virtuous to emigrate, and the comfort and convenience of the community generally increased, while much vice and its consequent pauperism will be prevented.

The Ladies have great confidence in appealing to the Public for aid in this philanthropic undertaking, feeling assured they will not appeal in vain. There is no doubt the want of such a Home has been lamentably felt by many a friendless girl, who may at this time be pining in poverty and woe; who would have been, under other circumstances, an useful member of society, and an ornament in the station she was designed to fill.

Particulars may be obtained at the "home" or of the undersigned, by whom Subscriptions and Donations will be gratefully received.

S. CROUCH, Secretary. Argyle-street
Servants' "House", High-street. 14th of 10th Month, 1856."

Source: SERVANTS' HOME. (1856, November 1). The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859), p. 1.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2506506

THE RULES No's. 1-5:



FEMALE SERVANTS' HOME, HIGH -STREET. (1856, November 26).
The Tasmanian Daily News (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1855 - 1858), p. 3.
Source: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202389475

TRANSCRIPT

Female Servants' Home, High-street.
Various rumours being abroad as to the conditions on which servants are admitted into the " home," the committee have determined to publish the rules for the information of the public generally, and at the same time to thank those ladies and gentlemen both in town and country who have come forward so kindly and generously with subscriptions to aid in establishing this institution.
The rules to be observed by the inmates of the servants'-" home."
1st. Admission rule— Each person must produce her own character.
She must also signify her intention to conform to the following rules by signing them in a book kept for that purpose.
2nd. That each person so admitted must pay to the housekeeper three shillings per week (in advance) which will entitle her to a bed, the use of the fire, and other necessaries for cooking, washing, &., with the accommodation of the sitting room.
3rd. That each person will be required to deposit one shilling with the housekeeper, which sum will be returned on her leaving the establishment, provided nothing is destroyed which was appropriated to her individual use.
4th. In the event of any female leaving before her week is expired, so much of the three shillings will be returned as will amount to the payment of sixpence each night she shall have occupied the lodging.
5th. The doors of the building will be closed at nine o'clock, when each person is expected to be in, and the lights out at ten o'clock. No intoxicating drinks will be allowed on the premises ; but no further restraint will be used, or undue influence exercised in the choice of situation or otherwise.

S. Crouch, Secretary.

N.B.— Any inmate preferring to take her meals off the housekeeper can procure either at nine pence per meal.

FEMALE SERVANTS' HOME, HIGH -STREET. (1856, November 26).
The Tasmanian Daily News (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1855 - 1858), p. 3.
Source: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202389475

H. H. Baily's portrait of Sarah (Rothwell) Crouch
One way of looking at this photograph is to see it as a piece of cardboard on which is printed an image. Perhaps it has commercial value only because of age, condition, and provenance. Another way is to step into the scene and participate as the photographer might while talking to his sitter. Still another way is to trace the journey of each element in the picture from any known context in which it has appeared up to the present, in which case the familiar object in this portrait of Sarah Crouch by H. H. Baily is the carpet with a pattern of large dark lozenges rimmed in white. It was formerly used by Alfred Bock as one of his studio carpets, then by Thomas Nevin for one of several set-ups for taking portraits in the same studio in 1868, and finally the same carpet was used in this portrait of Sarah Crouch by Henry Hall Baily, that is, if he photographed her before her death in 1876. Note that Sarah Crouch wore her velvet jacket over her dress for her sitting in the Alfred Bock and H. H. Baily photographs, but had taken it off for her sitting with Thomas J. Nevin.

On the other hand, is this just a piece of cardboard which was reprinted by Henry Hall Baily from an original capture taken by Alfred Bock before 1865; then reprinted by Thomas Nevin, operating as Nevin & Smith between 1865-1868; or, later, reprinted by Thomas Nevin again from 1868-1875 when both Bock's stock and Nevin's negatives were reprinted by Samuel Clifford to 1878; and lastly, reprinted by Henry Hall Baily ca. 1880? Reprints were mostly at the request of the client and family. All three photographers - Alfred Bock, Samuel Clifford, and Henry Hall Baily - were close friends and colleagues of Thomas J. Nevin from the early 1860s to his retirement in 1888. To further complicate matters of copying, from the early 1860s the source of their studio carpets, tables, drapes and backsheets was the family warehouse of Charles A. Woolley, the most senior photographer of their Hobart cohort. His studio furnishings and photographic paraphernalia were passed around among members of that cohort when times were hard, which was more often than not.



Photograph of Sarah Crouch,
University of Tasmania Library Special and Rare Materials Collection
Link: https://eprints.utas.edu.au/7214/

Photograph of Sarah Crouch, wife of Thomas James Crouch, under sheriff of Van Diemen's Land. The photographer was Henry Hall Baily who had studios in Elizabeth and Liverpool Streets, Hobart from 1865-1918.

Verso: Photograph of Sarah Crouch
University of Tasmania Library Special and Rare Materials Collection
Link: https://eprints.utas.edu.au/7214/



Woolley's Carpets and Upholstery Warehouse, Macquarie St.
Series: Photographs and Glass Plate Negatives collected by E R Pretyman (NS1013)
Archives Tasmania Ref: NS1013_1_1895

Providence Valley Burial Ground
In 1836 the Society of Friends (Quakers) established a cemetery on ground purchased from William Shoobridge's Providence Valley Farm. Sarah Crouch was buried there in 1876, so too was her husband Thomas Crouch in 1890. About 60 people, including members of the Propsting, Mather, Benson, Bell, Rowntree and Walker families used the cemetery until its closure in 1912. The former burial ground is now called the Friends' Park, Hill Street. The headstones of Sarah Crouch and others were retained and displayed around the park's perimeter.



Gravestone of Sarah Rothwell Crouch at Providence Valley Farm
Source: UTAS, eprints.utas.edu



Friends' Park
Source: G. Ritchie, photos and text
Link: https://ontheconvicttrail.blogspot.com/2014/04/friends-park-west-hobart.html

Friends Park is a small park in West Hobart that started life as a burial ground for the Society of Friends (Quakers). The land had originally been granted to William Shoobridge in the early 1820's and he had set up a farming enterprise. Although Shoobridge was a practicing Methodist, he found himself supporting the work of a number of Quaker missionaries who had visited Van Diemen's Land in the early 1830's. As a show of his support, he agreed to give the Society of Friends a half acre portion of his farm land in order for the Society to establish a burial grounds for themselves. As it turned out, following the establishment of the burial ground, Shoobridge himself became the first person to be buried there after he passed away in 1836.

The burial ground continued to provide for the Quakers into the 1900's. Even after the Cornelian Bay cemetery was opened in 1872 and many of Hobart's numerous suburban burial grounds were closed, the Society of Friends burial ground was able to continue operating because it fell outside the Hobart municipal boundary. Following the rezoning of the region into the new Greater Hobart municipality, the burial ground was finally closed in 1908.

It just remained as an unused burial ground until 1937 when the Hobart City Council negotiated with the Friends Society for the transfer of the land to the council so that it could be converted to a community recreation space for the growing West Hobart community.

Under the terms of the transfer agreement, the park was to be renamed Friends Park and the headstones were to be repositioned and re-erected around the walls of the new park. This was subsequently completed and the newly named Friends Park has continued to provide the local community with a beautiful recreational space. One with a very interesting past.

Source: https://ontheconvicttrail.blogspot.com/2014/04/friends-park-west-hobart.html

The Nevin and Shoobridge families
Shortly before Thomas J. Nevin's death in 1923 at his home, 270 Elizabeth St. Hobart, his eldest daughter known as May Nevin (1872-1955) made arrangements with her close friend Winifred Shoobridge, daughter of Annie Crouch and Richard Shoobridge, grand daughter of William Shoobridge of Providence Valley, to move with her brothers George, William, and Albert into the property at No's 23-29 Newdegate St., or Queen Street as it was then called until 1925, formerly Providence Valley, where they would remain until the death of May Nevin in 1955. Her other two siblings - Minnie Drew nee Nevin and Tom "Sonny" Nevin - were both married and living elsewhere by 1907. Each of the four remaining adult siblings set up a business on the Newdegate St. property: May did dressmaking; George sold vegetables from the garden; William ran a furniture removal business, and Albert trained a stable of pacers. In 1925 Queen Street was renamed Newdegate Street after Governor Sir Francis Newdegate (1917-1920) to avoid duplication with Queen Street, Sandy Bay.



The house at 23 Newdegate St. North Hobart, formerly Queen St. and Providence Valley (on the Shoobridge estate).Children of Albert Nevin, grandchildren of Thomas J. Nevin and Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day out front, 1930s.
Signage of W. J. Nevin, carrier, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin at left.
Copyright © KLW NFC 2006-2009 Private Collection ARR.



Metropolitan Drainage Board Map. No. 58 ca. 1908
The property 23-29 Newdegate St. formerly Queen St. where Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin's adult children settled from c 1923 to the late 1950s.
Queen St. North Hobart was renamed Newdegate St. after Governor of Tasmania Francis Newegate (1917-1920).
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania Ref: 628270



No. 23 Newdegate St. North Hobart Tasmania
The units on either side of the house and cottage were built with the sale of part of the property in the 1960s.
Google maps 2019

Updated 29 August 2026
Copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2020-2026

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• One of the last portraits by Alfred Bock in Hobart 1865
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• John Nevin snr and the Genge family
• Two couples, two dogs by A. Bock and T. Nevin
• Thomas Nevin's glass plates of prisoners 1870s
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• The Trial of Joshua Anson 1877
• Two histories, one execution: prisoners Job Smith & Emanuel Blore

Memento Mori: woman with deceased infant at T. Nevin's studio ca. 1874

Dr E. SWARBECK: infant mortality statistics Tasmania 1860s-1870s
Alfred BOCK: sketches of deceased infants 1864
Thomas J. NEVIN: a cdv portrait in the Memento Mori tradition ca. 1874



Detail of T. J. Nevin's full-length photograph of a woman with a deceased (or sleeping?) infant ca. 1874

It is a nostalgic time right now, and photographs actively promote nostalgia. Photography is an elegiac art, a twilight art. Most subjects photographed are, just by virtue of being photographed, touched with pathos. An ugly or grotesque subject may be moving because it has been dignified by the attention of the photographer. A beautiful subject can be the object of rueful feelings, because it has aged or decayed or no longer exists. All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.

From Susan, Sontag, On Photography, 1977, p.15
https://files.eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4233/2013/10/16022523/Sontag-On-Photography.pdf

Infant mortality and Tasmanian salubrity

TRANSCRIPT

THE healthiness of Tasmania is a subject of frequent comment,: and in the summer time especially this island is a great resort for persons from the other colonies in search of health or relaxation. We commend the following facts published in the Australasian, a weekly Melbourne paper, to the attention of intending emigrants-

"A striking testimony is borne to the salubrity of the Tasmanian climate by Dr. E. S. Hall, who has been for nearly forty years a medical practitioner in that island. He points out that the death rate - which from 1857 to 1868, inclusive, was only 14 per 1000 annually, as against 22 per 1000, the average in England and Wales - is undergoing a still further diminution in proportion as the native-born population become numerically greater than the imported inhabitants. As regards infant mortality, it appears that about nine out of every 10 children born survive the first year of life, and the mortality from that age up to about 14 years old decreases at a wonderful rate. The deaths in 1000 children between 3 and 14 years old only average about five per thousand annually. Dr. Hall adds that "intermittent and allied fevers are almost unknown, and other fevers are of rare occurrence. Small-pox has never yet existed in this island. Pulmonary consumption has a death-rate far below the English average, and more especially are the youths of both sexes, born in the island, comparatively exempt from this dire foe to the flower of the youth of the home countries. Emigrants from Europe with the consumptive tendency, if not too far gone, soon have the germs of this disease eradicated from the system if they observe the necessary laws of health."

We perceive from recent Indian papers that the advantages presented by Tasmania, both as a sanitarium for invalided officers, and as a place of retirement for those who have quittted active service, are engaging increased attention; and that Colonel Crawford's settlement at Castra is likely to attract many half-pay officers to the "garden island of Australia."

Source: LAUNCESTON EXAMINER. (1870, May 19). Launceston Examiner (Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article39675112

Infant mortality, 1864
The climate and weather patterns had a significant effect on mortality, according to Dr. E. Swarbreck Hall's calculations. He used measurements of atmospheric pressure, wind force, temperature, solar intensity, rain fall, humidity, terrestrial radiation, elastic force of vapor, spontaneous evaporation, cloudiness, and the abundance of ozone, electricity and lightning. When all these were applied to his data on deaths for the month of August 1864, he declared:

Most of the meteorological phenomena of the month were propitious to health, and the long continued excessive deaths have at length given way to a mortality below the August average of the previous seven years.

TRANSCRIPT and TABLE

The present month, contrasted with the previous one of July, exhibits a considerable reduction of deaths in every group of ages, though most so in infants under one year old, the number in August being only one fourth of those in July. This group, moreover, is little more than one-third of the seven years' average, and less in number than any year of the whole. From " 1 to 5 years," the deaths are less than half of the seven years' average, 1861, however, had a small mortality, and 1857 one less. But both of those years exceeded the present one in the total of all under 5 years old, and this is the test applied by the ablest sectarians, as to the comparative rate of mortality of any season or place. August, 1864, therefore, under this aspect, was undoubtedly the healthiest August in the table given.



In the group of ages, "5 to 20", the mortality was-two-sevenths below the seven years' average. Three years of the seven, however, had less, and two more exactly the same number. It is the large number in 1861 which raises the average so much. and it arose in that year from the epidemic of measles, six of the two deaths being from that disease, and five of the six at the Queen's Asylum for Destitute Children. At "20 to 45" years of age, the deaths were - 6-7th below the seven years' average, though four of the seven had fewer deaths than this month. From "45 to 60" the deaths were + 3 2-7 above the seven years' average ; two of the seven, however, considerably exceeded the present month. At "all ages above 60" the deaths were + 2-7th in excess of the seven years' average. Two were between 60-65; -  two 65-70; -  four 70-75; -  two respectively 87 and 88 years old.
Classes of Disease
1 Zymotic
2 Constitutional
3 Local
4 Developmental
5 Violent ... [etc ]

Source: ANALYSIS OF THE OBSERVATORY RECORDS FOR AUGUST, 1864;
IN CONJUNCTION WITH THOSE OF BIRTHS, DEATHS, &c. By E. SWARBRECK HALL. (1864, September 23).
The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 3.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8828540



Photograph - portrait - carte de visite - Hall, Edward Swarbreck M.D. - one time Health Officer of Hobart - c. 1860s
(Photo taken by Charles A. Woolley, 42 Macquarie Street, Hobart)
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/PH31-1-26/PH31-1-26

"Oppressio infantis": infant death from overlaying
A recent review (2024) of the digitised Tasmanian death records from 1838 to 1899 that indicated sudden death from asphyxia, suffocation, smothering, and overlaying of infants under one year old found that 128 cases (66 boys, 62 girls) could be attributed to overlaying, with the majority occurring during winter (June, July, August; n = 45) compared with summer (December, January, February; n = 20). Infants dying under 2 months were the largest group - 44% and the rest, 29% from 2 to 4 months; 17% from 4 to 6 months; and 10% from 6 to one year old. The review included contemporary indices of co-sleeping mortality and SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome):

The term overlaying refers to the unintentional suffocation of an infant who is sharing a sleeping surface usually with an adult, although other siblings and domestic animals may also be involved.1 Despite being documented as early as the Judgement of Solomon (1 Kings 3:19) in the Bible: ‘… and this woman's child died in the night because she overlaid it’,2 overlaying has had a somewhat controversial history with assertions in more recent decades being made that there are no dangers to an infant in a parental bed as long as the parents have not smoked.3 This does not, however, recognise high-risk situations where the bedding is soft and indentable, the parents are fatigued or intoxicated, and the infant has intrinsic vulnerabilities.4, 5 ....

Source: Byard, R.W., Kippen, R. and Maxwell-Stewart, H. (2024), Overlaying in colonial Tasmania: Revisiting the Templeman hypothesis. J Paediatr Child Health, 60: 257-259.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.16586

Alfred Bock's post-mortem sketches 1864
These delicate drawings of post-mortem children produced by photographic artist Alfred Bock in 1864 are fittingly sensitive and far more intimately focussed on the child's face than photographs of the deceased child held by a bereaved parent, the more conventional memorial portraiture of which the cdv (below) is an example from Thomas J. Nevin taken ca. 1874, working at Alfred Bock's former studio, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart.



Pages 53-54 - Post-mortem child
Link:https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/AUTAS001144580628/AUTAS001144580628P18



Pages 51-52 - Post-mortem child
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/AUTAS001144580628/AUTAS001144580628P17
Source: Bock, Alfred & J. Walch & Sons (Tas.) (1864). Sketchbook containing post-mortem and other drawings
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/AUTAS001144580628/AUTAS001144580628P14

Infant Mortality, 1874



TRANSCRIPT

VITAL STATISTICS. The number of births of children registered was 3007, a slight increase. The ratio of births per 1000 of the population was 29.73 ; the deaths were 1690. The superior healthiness for which the climate of Tasmania has acquired such a reputation is fully exemplified by the statistics now before us. The most important criterion of infant mortality is considered to be the ratio of deaths of infants under one year old to the births in any given year. The per centage of such deaths in the Australian colonies for the five years, 1869-73, was -
In Tasmania, 9.45 ; in New South Wales, 9.57; in Queensland, 11.07 ; in Victoria, 11.86; and in South Australia, 14.24. In England in 1870, sixteen deaths of infants to every one hundred births occurred, the per centage ranged from 15 in one large town to nearly 26 in another. One statistician shows by a comparison of data that of every 1000 infants under one year old in Scotland, about 44 who now die would at least survive the most dangerous period of life (the first year of existence), with proportionally favorable chances of attaining maturity, if they were born under the more happy skies of Tasmania; between 1 and 2, the saving of life would be about 47 per 1000 ; and between 2 and 5, about 52. Zymotic* and constitutional diseases show a considerably lower ratio than other countries. The marriage rate in 1874 was 6.83 per thousand

*Zymotic disease was a 19th-century medical term for acute infectious diseases,[1] especially "chief fevers and contagious diseases (e.g. typhus and typhoid fevers, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, erysipelas, cholera, whooping-cough, diphtheria, etc.)". Zyme or microzyme was the name of the organism presumed to be the cause of the disease. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zymotic_disease)

Source: STATISTICS OF TASMANIA FOR 1874 (1875, August 7). Launceston Examiner (Tas.), p. 3
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52900785

Thomas J. Nevin's post-mortem photograph
This woman with her child may have been Mrs Jones who resided in Warwick Street, five minutes' walk from Thomas J. Nevin's studio at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town. The death of her daughter Alice Rosina, less than three months old, was announced in the press on Friday evening, 23 January 1874:

DEATH. Jones.— On 23rd January, Alice Rosina, infant daughter of W. T. Jones, Warwick-street, aged 2 months and 22 days.

Source: Tasmanian Tribune. FRIDAY EVENING, JAN. 23, 1874.
Family Notices (1874, January 23)p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201169888



Subject: unidentified woman in plain dress holding a deceased [asleep?] new-born
Format: full-length sepia carte-de-visite on plain buff mount
Photographer: T. Nevin late A. Bock, City Photographic Establishment on backmark
Location and date: 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart, Tasmania ca. 1874
Details: studio setting, with carpet, slipper chair, table, flowers, backdrop, drape
Condition: foxing, fading, pinholes on mount
Provenance: eBay UK November 2025
Copyright: © KLW NFC Imprint Private Collection



T. J. Nevin's full-length photograph of a woman with a deceased infant ca. 1874

The sitter in mourning

Clothing: the mourner
She wore a plain black full-length mourning dress, hemmed in 3 tiers
Her dress was overlayed with a fringed bodice and white frill at neck
Her bodice was pinned closed without buttons, her cuffs invisible
Her long hair was pulled back, partly exposing her ears
Her hair was damped down, parted in centre, and tied at back in a bun
She wore no jewellery or ornament

Clothing: the baby
She dressed the baby in a full white christening gown, prepared for baptism and burial
A thin skull cap covered the baby's crown

Pose and expression: the photographer's directions
Photographer Thomas Nevin posed her sitting on his shiny lady's slipper chair, eyes level, facing left
The baby's head rested in her left hand, the body in her right hand
The baby's eyes were closed but the mouth was left open
Nevin directed the mourner's gaze away to his right, away from the camera facing her front-on
His focus was sharpest on her eyes and mouth at the mid-point of the frame
Were her lips taut and dry from so much crying, was she drowning in her tears ?
If so, to hand-tint her cheeks or lips after printing would have been inappropriate on this occasion

Nevin's studio decor
These cdv's (below) taken between 1868 and 1875 at Thomas J. Nevin's studio, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town, each exhibits at least one item of decor present in the set-up for his memento mori photograph (above) of the woman and her deceased infant:

the light floor covering (tapis) with a diamond and chain pattern;
the table with 3 griffin-shaped legs;
the fake Georgian window painted on a back sheet or board;
the shiny leather lady's slipper chair;
the vase with tinted flowers on the table;
the drape left of frame

THE CARPET, CHAIR and TABLE
The same arrangement of studio furniture and carpet in this portrait of a woman in a plain dark dress, possibly also in mourning, suggests she visited Nevin's studio aound the same time, ca. 1873-1874. He stamped these two cdv's with his most common commercial backmark, using black ink in those years.



Above: a mature woman, hatless, in a plain dark dress, ca. 1874.
Verso stamped "T. Nevin late A. Bock, City Photographic Establishment"
Scans © The Private Collection of C. G. Harrisson 2006.
Read more here:The C. G. Harrisson Collection: three studio stamps

THE VASE
For this portrait taken later, ca. 1875, Nevin chose a quite different arrangement of the slipper chair and table, orienting the sitter, Elizabeth Allport, towards the fake Georgian floor to ceiling window backdrop at left of frame. The vase in the shape of hands holding tinted flowers in this portrait is the same one sitting on the same table in his memento mori cdv (above) of the woman with her deceased infant.



Above: Full length cdv on plain mount of Elizabeth (Ritchie) Allport (1835-1925), wife of government agent Morton Allport (1830–1878) posed seated in full bustle on Nevin's slipper chair, her right hand resting on the small table with the griffin-shaped legs, gaze direct to camera. Taken ca.1876.
The verso bears T. J. Nevin's government contractor backmark which includes the Royal Arms insignia.
Copyright © The Liam Peters Collection 2010. All rights reserved.
Read more here:Elizabeth Allport nee Ritchie at Thomas J. Nevin's studio 1876

THE BACK SHEET
The same backsheet as it appears in Nevin's memento mori portrait (above) appears as a standing backboard painted to suggest a three-quarter length window with partially-opened shutters in this portrait of a bearded gentlemen of senior years wearing a three-piece suit, fob chain and polished shoes, seated at the table with griffin-shaped legs. His boater placed on the table might suggest summer, Regatta Day attendance even.



Above: Bearded man of senior years, well-dressed, boater on table
Verso is stamped with Thomas J. Nevin's colonial warrant with Royal insignia, "T. J. Nevin Photographic Artist".
Scans copyright © The Private Collection of C. G. Harrisson 2006.
Read more here: The C. G. Harrisson Collection: three studio stamps

The carpet or tapis seen here, patterned with small dark squares which differs from the tapis with a diamond and chain-link pattern featured in many of Nevin's portraits ca. 1872-174, was used in a number of studio set-ups for portraits taken expressly for government officials or their family members such as this bearded gentlemen of senior years whose dress and demeanour suggests service in an aldermanic or legal capacity. The fine portrait of Elizabeth (Ritchie) Allport, wife of government agent Morton Allport, was posed seated at the same table and on the same carpet. The full-length portrait of Richard McVilly, bugle in hand, facing the camera as a child was posed with him standing on the same carpet next to the same fake Georgian window at left of frame, with even more detail than is visible in Elizabeth Allport's portrait. Richard (Dick) McVilly was the son of William Thomas McVilly, constable and later clerk for the Lands and Works Department, HCC and Clerk of Papers.This cdv is held at the National Library of New Zealand.



NLNZ Catalogue notes:
Date: 1867-1875
Nevin, Thomas J, 1842-1923
Inscription: Inscribed - Verso - In ink : Jn Dick.
Copyright © National Library of New Zealand Ref: PA2-1196
Verso: T. J. Nevin's colonial warrant gov't contractor stamp with Royal insignia.
Read more here: T.J. Nevin's portraits of the McVilly children 1874

ANIMATED BABY PHOTO
Also held in the © The Liam Peters Private Collection is this photograph of what appears to be an animated baby, arms in the air and eyes focussed on someone to the child's left. The blue ink used here to tint a cushion behind each shoulder of the child's white dress, was used by Nevin to print his commonly used commercial backmark studio stamp verso between 1867-1870; from 1871, he used black ink for the same backmark.



Carte-de-visite of a reclining baby with blue tint recto on head cushion and backmark.
Scans submitted here courtesy of private collector Liam Peters, December 2010.
Copyright © The Liam Peters Collection 2010 ARR
Read more here: The Liam Peters Collection

Tombstones copied, terms cheap!
Death was good for business. While operating as the firm "Nevin & Smith, Photographers, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobarton" with partner Robert Smith, 1867-1868, Thomas J. Nevin advertised on labels pasted to the back of stereographs featuring landscapes and residences in a series called Tasmanian Views that he could also provide copies of tombstones at cheap rates.





Stereograph by Nevin & Smith of four people outside a house with side extensions
Verso: Nevin & Smith yellow label ca. 1868
Icon, pointing finger: Views of Residences, Tombstones copied, Terms: - Cheap!
Copyright © Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, TMAG Ref: Q16826.9

RELATED POSTS main weblog

• Elizabeth Allport nee Ritchie at Thomas J. Nevin's studio 1876
• Lost originals: the Nevin, Genge and Chandler family photographs
• The C. G. Harrisson Collection: three studio stamps
• The Liam Peters Collection
• Thomas Nevin's studio decor: the lady's slipper chair
• Thomas Nevin's women clients and their dresses 1870s
• T.J. Nevin's portraits of the McVilly children 1874
• Tombstones copied, Terms: - Cheap!
• Thomas J. Nevin's Blue Ink Series 1860s - 1870s

Rape, fraud, stabbing, perjury and a smoking jury: the Supreme Court Hobart 10-12 February 1876

Stephen SPURLING, charged with false pretences
Patrick LAMB, charged with wounding
John NOWLAN as Dowling, charged with rape
Eliza Ann McKENZIE and Honora TRACEY, charged with perjury



Supreme Court building extreme foreground with horses and carriages waiting outside in Murray Street
"Murray Street, Hobart, looking towards waterfront and New Wharf; shows Treasury and Supreme Court buildings"
Format: photograph, unattributed, no date [1880s?]
Creating Agency: Bayly Family (NG364); Archives Office Tasmania
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/NS87-1-3/NS87-1-3

Five arraignments
Professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin was more than a little interested in proceedings at the Supreme Court, Hobart on Thursday 10th February and Friday 11th February 1876. As assistant bailiff and government contractor his duties were to provide mugshots of prisoners who faced incarceration at the Hobart Gaol. Of the five who were arraigned, two were women, Honora Tracey alias Borland and Eliza Ann McKenzie. Neither would require a sitting with Nevin since women imprisoned in Tasmania were not formally photographed until the 1890s. Of the three men, Nevin had already photographed the first, John Nowlan alias Dowling on discharge from the Hobart Gaol in December 1874 and reconviction in February 1875, so he would not need another sitting; his existing mugshot would simply need reprinting. The second male, Patrick Lamb was a first offender, so he would be photographed within the next week. The third man in the dock was a fellow photographer, Stephen Spurling senior, the first in a dynasty of photographers named Stephen Spurling (I, II and III - see Burgess, C. 2010 below). His financial difficulties had led him to court.

Two of these five prisoners - Honora Tracey, charged with perjury and Stephen Spurling snr, charged with fraud, were both released on remand and bail respectively. Patrick Lamb received the lightest sentence of three years for stabbing a man over some "peas"; John Nowlan as Dowling was sentenced to death for rape of a 10yr old girl; and Eliza Ann McKenzie was sentenced to seven years for perjury. She claimed she was raped by two men - the Captain and the Chief Officer - on board the Bella May resulting in the birth of her son 9 months later. In court were the reporters for the Hobart Mercury and Tasmanian Tribune; their accounts of proceedings on those two days - 11th and 12th February 1876 - would bring some of their readers to tears, and others to mirth.

POLICE GAZETTE NOTICE, 10-12 Feb 1976



Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime for Police (weekly police gazette) Gov's printer J. Barnard

Arraigned in the Supreme Court, Hobart Town 10-12 February 1876 were the five prisoners with these details:

Patrick Lamb, 35 years old, transported to VDL on the ship Siam, FC = free with conditions, sentenced to 3 years for the offence of wounding with intent.

Eliza Ann McKenzie, 20 years old, native = born in Tasmania (not transported), free, sentenced to 7 years for the offence of perjury.

John Nowlan alias Dowling, 45 years old, arrived at Hobart on the ship Bangalore, FC = free with conditions, sentenced to death for the offence of rape.

Stephen Spurling, 55 years old, ship unknown, i.e. how he arrived at Hobart is not recorded here (see Burgess below), FC = free with conditions, on bail for the offence of obtaining credit by false pretences.

Honora Tracey, transported as Boland, 46 years old, arrived at Hobart on the Midlothian, FS =free in service, remanded for the offence of perjury.

Press Reports, 11-12 February 1876

THE CHARGES

TRANSCRIPT

SUPREME COURT.
Thursday, Feb. 10th.

(His Honor Sir Francis Smith, Chief Justice, presided in the First Court, and Mr Justice Dobson in the Second Court.)

Stephen Spurling was charged with obtaining goods by means of false pretences.

The jury retired, and as they had not agreed on a verdict at 7.15 p.m., the Court was adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

The other cases on the calendar are — John Nowlan, Bellerive, rape. Patrick Lamb, Franklin, wounding. Robert Hopper, Oatlands, robbery and wounding. Patrick Powell, Oatlands, housebreaking. Honora Tracey, Hobart Town, perjury. Eliza Ann McKenzie, Hobart Town, perjury. Patrick Walsh, Oatlands, breaking into a store and larceny. William Sainsbury and Harriet Sainsbury, Oatlands, housebreaking. Ellen Waller, Franklin, perjury.

Source: Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston, Tas. : 1835 - 1880), Friday 11 February 1876, page 2
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article72522140

THE DECISIONS

TRANSCRIPT

Criminal Sessions.-The sessions were continued yesterday. ln the First Court, before the Chief Justice, the jury, in the case of Stephen Spurling, sen., being unable to agree, were discharged. Patrick Lamb was found guilty of wounding with intent one Patrick Roach, at Franklin, and was remanded for sentence. In the case of Honora Tracey, charged with perjury, the jury were unable to agree, and were discharged. The Second court presided over by Mr. Justice Dobson, was occupied during the whole of the day in investigating a charge of perjury preferred against a young woman named Eliza Ann Mackenzie. The case arose out of a police court trial in which the defendant charged the captain and mate of the barque Bella Mary with committing a rape upon her during a voyage to and from Auckland in 1874. Her evidence at the trial was proved to have been entirely false, and Mackenzie was found guilty, and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. Mr. Moriarty defended the prisoner. One more case remains for trial this morning.

A LIVELY JURY.-It was rumoured on Thursday night that the jury in the case of Stephen Spurling, senr., had been playing up high jinks in the retiring room, and as it was well-known that that was the reason why the Chief Justice ordered them to be locked up for the night, there was considerable speculation as to how the jury had been spending their time during the alleged disturbance. When they were brought up yesterday morning, His Honour, before discharging them, as they had been unable to agree, asked them whether they had any explanation to make of their conduct in the jury room. The foreman, Mr. J. W. Palmer, of Bagdad, said the jury sincerely regretted that any disturbance should have taken place, and tendered an explanation. It was to the effect that the jury were divided on the smoking question. The smokers naturally indulged in their favourite pastime, and the non-smokers, not being at all partial to the weed, suffered severe qualms. The result was that, after submitting to be enveloped in smoke for some time, the non-smokers determined to open the window. They were prevented from doing so, and a little scuffling ensued ; but eventually the window was forced open, and one of the shutters broken. The mysterious part of the affair however is that somebody threw one of the chairs out of the window, a feat respecting which nothing was said by the foreman, and we are left to infer that at one time matters had risen to a high pitch of excitement. At all events, His Honor accepted the apology, and was kind enough to say that, on consideration, no one could be guilty of bringing deliberate discredit upon an institution which was the pride of Englishmen all over the world.

THE DISAGREEMENT of JURIES.-The frequency of juries not being able to agree is becoming a serious matter. Yesterday, the Chief Justice was compelled to discharge two juries who were unable to come to a unanimous decision. In the case of Honora Tracey, tried for perjury, the jury were locked up until 10 o'clock last night, and when brought in were so positive as to there being no chance of any unanimity, that it was evident they were afraid of being confined for the night. His Honor noticed this, and told them that it was his duty to see that the facilities of discharge were not such as to make them an impediment to justice. In olden times, he added, juries were locked up till they did agree, and that without anything to eat and without fire - a piece of information which caused the jury men to look as if they expected to be treated in a similar manner. His Honor, however, was lenient, for, after expressing an opinion that if this difficulty continued, it would be necessary to consider whether juries should be allowed to separate at all before coming to some decision, he discharged the jury.

The Convict Nowlan.-In reporting that the Chief Justice had "passed" sentence of death on Nowlan, for criminal assault on a child, an error was made. It should have been that sentence of death was "recorded," a very different thing, in so far as the convict is concerned.

Prisoners Patrick Lamb and Eliza McKenzie sentenced, Stephen Spurling and Honora Tracey as Borland discharged, John Nowlan as Dowling, sentence of death recorded.
Source: THE MERCURY. (1876, February 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8943037

Other key documents
COURT RECORDS with names of jurors
Stephen Spurling, John Nolan, Patrick Lamb, Eliza Ann McKenzie
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/SC32-1-9/SC32-1-9P235
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/SC32-1-9/SC32-1-9P236
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/SC32-1-9/SC32-1-9P237

GAOL RAP sheet
McKenzie gaol record and discharge 1 Feb 1880
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/CON42-1-1/CON42-1-1P146

PRESS account
Honora Tracy - press report of her perjury
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8943031



Source: Henry Dobson (1841–1918) ADB- https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dobson-henry-5986
In: Members of the Parliaments of Tasmania - no. 236 / photographed by J.W. Beattie.
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania.
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/Library/SD_ILS-621674



Stereograph - New Post Office and Supreme Court, Hobart.
Photographer: Samuel Clifford, 1860s
Source: Archives Office Tasmania
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/LPIC147-3-170/LPIC147-3-170


CASE 1: ship's passenger Eliza Ann McKenzie
Eliza Ann McKenzie was born at Hobart (VDL) Tasmania in 1855 to parents Elizabeth Wood (19 yrs) and John McKenzie (23 yrs), general goods dealer, who were married on 29 March 1854 at the Chalmers Free Church, Hobart, witnessed by Elizabeth Wood's sister Eliza Wood (her aunt whose name she was given) and John McKenzie's brother Duncan McKenzie.*
(*Source: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/RGD37-1-13/RGD37-1-13P232).

It was not made clear in both press reports of the hearing and the trial of Eliza Ann McKenzie in 1875 and 1876 why she embarked on a voyage to Auckland, New Zealand on the trader barque Bella Mary from Hobart in 1874. In all likelihood she responded to an advertisement in the Hobart Mercury of 23 June 1874 placed by the ship's captain George McArthur. The advertisement sounded too good to be true: Captain George McArthur was offering three young women a free return passage to Auckland, New Zealand on the Bella Mary; they would have jobs as barmaids; and they would receive good wages. Excited at the prospect of adventure on a working holiday, Eliza would have stepped onto the Bella Mary before noon that Tuesday morning and found herself thoroughly charmed by the captain promising her a wonderful time at his expense. :

TRANSCRIPTS

WANTED THREE RESPECTABLE YOUNG WOMEN as BARMAIDS to proceed, per "Bella Mary" for Auckland. Good wages will be given, and a free return, passage
Apply to CAPTAIN McARTHUR, (between the hours of 11 and 12 o'clock this morning) on board "Bella Mary".

Source: Advertising (1874, June 23). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 1.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8930703

Two weeks' later Eliza Ann McKenzie departed Hobart on the Bella Mary as a cabin passenger in the company of Mr and Mrs Hinton and Jane Hammond who would later contradict Eliza's evidence in court that she too was raped by the Captain on the voyage to Auckland. It may have been evident to Jane Hammond that the captain wanted sexual services in exchange for his promises, but not to Eliza, who was so devastated by the experience she was prepared to make very public the criminal aspect of his sexual behaviour.

CLEARED OUT.-July 4.
Bella Mary, barque, 270 tons, G. McArthur, for Auckland, N.Z. Passengers - Cabin : Mr Frederick Hinton, Mrs. Hinton, Miss Annie Thera Jane Hammond, Miss Eliza Mckenzie . Agents - Bayley and McGregor.

Source: SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE. (1874, July 6).The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8930948

Birth of son 24 May 1875
The Bella Mary departed Hobart for Auckland on 4 July 1874 and returned to Hobart on 21 August 1874. Eliza Ann McKenzie alleged the captain George McArthur raped her on the voyage to Auckland and held her down while the chief officer John Fuge also raped her on the return voyage. She found she was pregnant as a consequence. She gave birth to a son at Hobart whom she named Richard McArthur McKenzie nine months later, on 24 May 1875. The name of child's father was not registered but she made sure he would be remembered forever after by registering his surname "McArthur" as her son's middle name. The birth was registered on 3 July 1875 by (the child's?) grandfather Greg McKenzie, of Bathurst St. Hobart.

McKenzie, Richard McArthur
Record Type: Births
Gender: Male
Father: McKenzie, Name Not Recorded
Mother: McKenzie, Eliza Ann
Date of birth: 24 May 1875
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/NamesIndex/976867



McKenzie v. McArthur 21 August 1875
In the Police Court of Hobart Town on 20th August 1875, Eliza Ann McKenzie made three allegations: that George McArthur, the captain of the barque Bella Mary committed a series of rapes on her on the voyages to and from Auckland in July and August 1874; that the captain held her down while chief officer John Fuge also raped her on 21st August: and that the captain had raped another young woman on the voyage to Auckland, Jane Hammond, in July 1874. Her three allegations made in this first hearing, were reported by the press in these terms (21 August 1875): -

TRANSCRIPT

AFFILIATION. McKenzie v. McArthur.— When this case was called on for hearing the complainant handed to the Police Magistrate a written statement as she had directed her counsel to do. A lengthy discussion then ensued between the Police Magistrate and Mr. Moriarty as to the proper course to pursue in laying the information, the Magistrate still contending that the criminal case should take precedence. Mr. Jackson said that his client, Mr. McArthur, was not only willing, but anxious to proceed with the matter in any form. The complainant ultimately intimated her intention on proceeding with the criminal case first, and the affiliation case was accordingly ordered to stand over. FELONY. McKenzie v. McArthur.—The defendant Geo. McArthur, was charged with the commission of a criminal offence on Eliza Ann McKenzie, on the 21st of August of last year [1874]. The defendant pleaded not guilty. Mr. Moriarty appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Jackson for the defence. The Police Magistrate ordered the Court to be cleared. The complainant, Eliza McKenzie, was then called, and stated the particulars of the alleged offence, but they were of a nature unfit for publication. The cross-examination of this witness was not proceeded with by Mr. Jackson, and the case was adjourned at half-past one till the next morning.

Source: LAW. (1875, August 21). The Tasmanian Tribune (Hobart Town, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201487160

The Port Officer's Log recorded the names of two cabin passengers on the Bella Mary on arrival back at Hobart on 21 August 1874: Miss McKenzie and Mr. Laurence. Whoever Mr Laurence may have been,  he was not called into the court for his opinion.



Cabin passengers on the Bella Mary, Ms McKenzie and Mr Laurence
Reports of ships arrivals with lists of passengers
Archives Office Tasmania
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/MB2-39-1-34/MB2-39-1-34P086

Why was this young woman not believed?
Eliza Ann McKenzie was charged with making false allegations to the Police Court in 1875 of having been raped by both George McArthur and John Fuge on board the Bella Mary at sea on voyages to Auckland from Hobart and from Auckland to Hobart in July and August1874. The jury at the criminal trial in February 1876 took little more than 35 minutes to return a verdict of guilty of perjury. Eliza Ann McKenzie was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. Her defence attorney Mr Moriarty argued that on the basis of probabilities - without directly referring to the nine-months of her pregnancy from when the series of rapes occurred to  May 1875 when her son was born - her claim was probably truthful. Justice Dobson agreed that "someone had certainly wronged her" but he was not going to send good men to the gallows on the basis of her evidence. Even so, the court was cleared to allow full description of the events by Eliza Ann McKenzie and her counsel, the details of which were so shocking they were deemed unfit for publication. 

The accused rapist Captain George McArthur, married in 1868  to Isabella Emma Lovell* who sometimes accompanied him as a passenger on his Hobart- Auckland voyages (on 6 February 1874, for example), was supported by a crowd of reputable witnesses who testified to his impeccable character. His co-accused chief mate John Fuge deposed that Eliza Ann McKenzie seemed happy when she disembarked at Hobart. The other alleged victim of their assault, Jane Hammond, was brought from Auckland to testify that she was not raped by either of these men.
(*Source: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/RGD37-1-27/RGD37-1-27P167)

TRANSCRIPT

SECOND COURT
Before His Honor Mr Justice Dobson
The Attorney-General prosecuted on behalf of the Crown.

PERJURY
Eliza Ann McKenzie pleaded not guilty to a charge of having committed perjury in the Police Court of Hobart Town on the 20th August last

Mr MORIARTY defended the prisoner,
Jury : Messrs. W. C. Sharland (foreman), R. Winter, A. Flexmore, C. Colvin, R. Goldsmith. N. Ray, T. Gase, H. Gage, T. Stump, G. Watt, H. J. James, and E. Lipscombe.

The Attorney-General, in opening the case, said the defendant was charged with having committed perjury, on an information containing three counts, first, by swearing that George McArthur, captain of the barque Bella Mary, committed a series of rapes upon her on the voyage of that vessel to Auckland in August, 1874, and, also, on the return voyage ; second, by swearing that Captain McArthur forcibly held her down while the chief officer, John Fuge, outraged her ; and third, by swearing that Captain McArthur, during the same voyage, committed rape upon another girl, a fellow passenger, named Jane Hammond. The case, the Attorney-General said, was one of the most remarkable, and, in some respects, one of the most painful that he had ever met with since he had any knowledge of criminal proceedings. He then detailed the circumstances of the case, with the main facts of which the public are already familiar, and dwelt at length on the enormity of the offence of perjury, especially when, as in this case, the life and liberty of two men had been placed in jeopardy.

The evidence was not such as will bear publication. The following witnesses were called for the prosecution :- Capt. McArthur, John Fuge, Samuel Weir, Jane Hammond, and Thomas Large. The depositions of Milford McArthur and Walter Williams, seamen, on board the Bella Mary were put in. The only fresh evidence was that of Jane Hammond, who had been brought from Auckland for the purpose. She denied that any outrage had been committed upon her by Captain McArthur, as stated by the defendant, and stated that during the voyage she never heard or saw anything that would support the allegations of the defendant with respect to the captain and chief officer of the vessel.

Mr. Moriarty addressed the jury for the defence, his main point being that the jury should look not so much to the evidence given as to the probabilities, and the probabilities, he urged, were entirely in favour of the truth of the defendant's story.

For the defence, he called the mother of the defendant, Mr. Superintendent Propsting, Mr. A. McGregor, Dr. E. L. Crowther, Mr. James Robinson, and Mr. George Crisp. The last two were called on witnesses to the character of Captain McArthur and the defendant respectively.

His Honor summed up with great minuteness, and from his remarks it appeared that the tenor of the evidence was decidedly adverse to the defendant's case.

The jury then retired, and after an absence of 35 minutes, returned into Court with a verdict of guilty on all three counts.

The prisoner, in reply to the usual question, said she had nothing to say why sentence should not be passed upon her.

Mr. Sargent (for Mr. Moriarty, who had been called away to Launceston) asked the Judge to pass as light a sentence on the prisoner as possible on account of her youth and inexperience.

His Honor, addressing prisoner, said he was afraid she did not understand the position in which she had placed herself. [Prisoner : I do not.] He thought not. Had she known it, she would have known that had her evidence at the police court been believed, Capt. McArthur and his mate might both (and a few years ago inevitably would) have suffered death upon the gallows. A man who stabbed another, or took his life by violent means, was much more merciful than one who coolly and deliberately swore away his life in a court of justice. The defendant was young, some one had certainly wronged her, and he felt the position in which she was placed. At the same time it was a duty he owed to society, whatever his own feelings might be, to mark an offence of this kind very severely. He had the power to send her to gaol for 21 years, but that would be a barbarous punishment, and he would pass upon her the full sentence of only one of the three counts upon which she had been found guilty. It was a heavy penalty, but it was necessary to inflict a heavy penalty upon a woman who, having arrived at years of discretion, had deliberately, by a wilfully false statement, jeopardised the life of a fellow-creature. The sentence of the Court would, therefore, be that the defendant be imprisoned for seven years.

The prisoner did not seem to feel her position very acutely.

Source: CRIMINAL SESSIONS. (1876, February 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8943031

The only allegation which was upheld and examined after the testimonies by both John Fuge and Jane Hammond were dismissed was Eliza Ann McKenzie's claim of rape by George McArthur, the penalty for which was death by hanging (Act 1863, Section 45, Offences against the Person):

Rape, Abduction, and Defilement of Women.
45 Whosoever shall be convicted of the crime of Rape shall be guilty of Felony, and being convicted thereof shall suffer Death as as Felon.

READ the FULL ACT here {pdf}
An Act To Consolidate And Amend The Legislative Enactments Relating To Offences Against The Person (27 Vic, No 5) Austlii Database

Despite a solid defence and witnesses of premier social status for Eliza Ann McKenzie (apart from her mother) including her legal counsel Sylverius Moriarty; the Superintendent of Police, Richard Propsting; the shipowner Andrew McGregor with Charles Bayley of the Bella Mary; and medical practitioner Dr E. L. Crowther, she was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment at the Supreme Court, Hobart on 10 February 1876 on one count of perjury. Eliza Ann McKenzie's prison records state only that she was well behaved during incarceration at the Cascades Factory. She was discharged after serving 4 years of a 7 year sentence in 1880, her date of death yet to be determined.



Source: Archives Office Tasmania
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/CON42-1-1/CON42-1-1P146


CASE 2: "no peas" Patrick Lamb
Patrick Lamb's Hobart Gaol record shows only that he arrived free to the colony (Tasmania) on the ship Siam (no date given, but possibly as a former soldier of H. M. 70th Regiment of Foot). He married Jane McKinsie on 13 May 1869 at Chalmer's Church, Hobart (see Addenda 2 below) , his occupation listed as "soldier". His occupation was listed as "splitter" (a timber worker) when she gave birth to a son, unnamed at registration, in January 1871 at Franklin, Tasmania. Two years later, she gave birth to a daughter, Susan Lamb, on 9 April 1873 also at Franklin. She died from incessant vomiting after a difficult parturition in September 1876. Exactly nine months earlier, in January 1876, her husband Patrick Lamb confronted Patrick Roach with the accusation that "he had no peas for him" before stabbing him for the fourth time (according to Roach). Patrick Lamb was tried at the Supreme Court Hobart on 10th February 1876 for "wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm" to Patrick Roach and sentenced to three years' imprisonment at the House of Corrections (Hobart Gaol). He was discharged on 11 May 1878.



Tasmanian prisoner Patrick Lamb per Siam, taken at the Hobart Gaol
Verso inscription: Patrick Lamb "Siam"
Photographer: T. J. Nevin , 1876-1878
Mitchell Library SLNSW (PXB 274) - not online
Link: https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/YzOgQ689
Photo copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2009

TRANSCRIPT

WOUNDING
Patrick Lamb was charged with having, on the 15th January, at Franklin, wounded Patrick Roach, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm.
The prisoner pleaded not guilty, and was defended by Mr. BROMBY.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL prosecuted.
Jury : Geo. Inge (foreman), Jos Pedder, Jas. Johnstone, C.E. Knight, Thos. Jenkins, Jno. Thomas, R.C. Read, S. Large, F.N. Spong, W. Davis, H.P. Bailey, W. Cowburn.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL briefly stated the case, and called -
Patrick Roach a labourer, residing at Franklin, deposed that on the night of the 15th January he was drinking at Brown's public-house. The prisoner came in a little after witness, and without saying a word he kicked witness. They had a few words, and then prisoner was removed. In about a quarter of an hour he returned, and having pulled witness down to a half- stoop, he stabbed him four times in and near the thigh. This was about 9 o'clock. Witness could not have been drunk, because he had not been there long enough. When the prisoner returned he stood at the end of the counter and said to witness that he had no *peas for him. Witness asked him what his peas or himself had to do with him (witness). Thereupon the prisoner without another word, stabbed him. There was a number of persons present and none of them tried to stop the prisoner. Witness saw the prisoner stab him the fourth time.

Ellen Roach the wife of the last witness, corroborated the most of her husband's statement. She added that only herself and Mr Brown went to her husband's assistance when he was being stabbed.

James Daly deposed to being in the public-house on the night in question. Roach and prisoner began to fight, and two quart pots were being used against the prisoner by Mrs. Roach and some one else. After the fight, Roach said to the prisoner, "If you touch me again I will stab you." The prisoner stood quiet for about a minute, and then rushed upon Roach and struck him three or four blows.

Esther Brown, the landlady of the public house; Elijah Brown, the landlord; Acting Chief District Constable Wheeldon, and Dr. W. Smith also gave evidence. A knife, which it was stated the prisoner had acknowledged to be his, was also produced. The medical testimony was conclusive as to the prosecutor having been stabbed.

Mr BROMBY addressed the jury, and called Sergeant Mitchell, who, however, did not appear.

HIS HONOR summed up, and the jury, after a short absence, returned with a verdict of "guilty." The prisoner was remanded for sentence.

Source: CRIMINAL SESSIONS. (1876, February 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8943031

*HE HAD NO PEAS FOR HIM: not readily understood nowadays, it could be 19th century British rhyming slang, as in "bees and honey" meaning money, but from which region or register?

Or, taking it literally, he was referring to peas that grow in the garden, as the victim Patrick Roach appears to have taken Lamb's accusation about peas - i.e. as ownership of some garden or vegetable variety of pea - in this criminal session, February 10-12, 1876, in reference to the incident of 15th January the previous month when Patrick Lamb stabbed him. The fact that Lamb stabbed him in the thigh (and groin area) might signify cuckoldry involving his wife and Roach, a common type of assault enacted by an aggrieved husband seeking revenge.

Patrick Lamb's wife Jane Lamb had experienced "a difficult parturition" (pregnancy-labor-childbirth) and died of "incessant vomiting" in September 1876, exactly nine months after the date of her husband's stabbing of Patrick Roach in January 1876. As no one appears to have registered the birth, in all likelihood the child was either not born or had not survived past childbirth. Her husband's suspicions about Patrick Roach's role in her pregnancy, his grief at the loss of the child, and her subsequent incessant vomiting leading to an agonising death may well have been linked in his mind. Was he accusing Patrick Roach of poisoning his wife by feeding her with "peas" which had caused his sudden rage? On the other hand, perhaps he was saying "no peace" and his pronunciation was misinterpreted by the Mercury journalist. Probabilities could and should have been raised in this case as well.

TIMELINE

1869: MARRIAGE
On the 13 May 1869, Patrick Lamb married Jane McKinsie in the Manse of Chalmers' Free Church in the District of Hobart according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Presbyterian Free Church. He was 28, a soldier and she was 21, registered as a "spinster" to indicate she had not previously married. Neither signed with their names; both marked the registration form with an "x".



Name: Lamb, Patrick
Record Type: Marriages
Gender: Male
Age: 28
Spouse: Mckenzie, Jane
Gender: Female
Age: 21
Date of marriage: 13 May 1869
Registered: Hobart
Source: Archives Office Tasmania
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/NamesIndex/871393

1876: PARTURITION and DEATH of WIFE
The death of Patrick Lamb's wife Jane Lamb nee McKinsie was registered in the district of Franklin (Tasmania) on the 11 September 1876. She was 27 years old. Cause of death: "Incessant vomiting after difficult parturition".... So, in the months leading up to labor and in the days following, was she poisoned with eating Roach's "peas"? What sort of peas could do that? Possibly one of these varieties:

Lathyrus odoratus ‘Mammoth Navy Blue’
SWEET PEA
Beautifully scented and particularly large Sweet Pea flowers of stunning deep navy blue. Long stems of very large flowers on 1.8m. climber. Tolerates hot weather better than most Sweet Peas. Continues producing over a long period. Great cut flowers. Sear cut end of stem with flame to prolong vase life. Good perfume. Prefers Full Sun. Grow in good, well worked garden soil on a frame, tripod or fence.
CAUTION – NOT EDIBLE – POISONOUS IF EATEN

Source: https://www.seedscape.net.au/product/lathyrus-odoratus-mammoth-navy-blue-sweet-pea/?v=b870c45f9584

TOXIC: Lathyrus sativus - sweet pea; Lathyrus odoratus - ditto; Abrus precatorius - Rosary pea - 3rd most poisonous plant, also called jequirity beans, these seeds contain Abrin, a protein. Rosary peas are native to tropical areas. The poison is stored inside the seeds so they are not poisonous if intact, but can be lethal if they are scratched, broken, or chewed. Like Ricin, Abrin prevents protein synthesis within cells and can cause organ failure within a few days; and Gastrolobium poison pea.

Adults exposed to sweet pea toxins may experience neurological symptoms such as paralysis or convulsions due to the presence of lathyrogens. Breathing difficulties and labored breaths are also telltale signs of poisoning. In severe cases, ingestion can lead to a condition known as lathyrism, characterized by paralysis below the knees.

Source:https://greg.app/sweet-pea-toxic-to-humans/

Toxicity
Unlike the edible pea, there is evidence that seeds of members of the genus Lathyrus are toxic if ingested in quantity. A related species, Lathyrus sativus, is grown for human consumption but when it forms a major part of the diet it causes symptoms of toxicity called lathyrism.[8]
In studies of rats, animals fed a diet of 50% sweet pea seeds developed enlarged adrenals relative to control animals fed on edible peas.[9] The main effect is thought to be on the formation of collagen. Symptoms are similar to those of scurvy and copper deficiency, which share the common feature of inhibiting proper formation of collagen fibrils. Seeds of the sweet pea contain beta-aminopropionitrile that prevents the cross-linking of collagen by inhibiting lysyl oxidase and thus the formation of allysine, leading to loose skin. Recent experiments have attempted to develop this chemical as a treatment to avoid disfiguring skin contractions after skin grafting.[10]

Source: Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_pea



Death of Jane Lamb, 27 yrs old, on 11 Sept 1876 from incessant vomiting after difficult parturition
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/RGD35-1-45/RGD35-1-45P77

1876-1878: THE CRIME, IMPRISONMENT and DISCHARGE
Patrick Lamb was 35 years old when he was tried at the Supreme Court Hobart, sentenced to three years at the Hobart Gaol on 10 February 1876 for "Wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm". Noted in remarks: "per Siam, Free to Colony, Governor in Confidence 4/3/78 ... To be discharged 10 May 1878 - Discharged 11.5.78."



Patrick Lamb per Siam, free to colony.
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/CON37-1-10/CON37-1-10P612

SUPREME COURT HOBART ROUGH CALENDAR



Trial: Lamb, Patrick
Record Type: Court
Status: Free
Trial date: 11 Feb 1876
Place of trial: Hobart
Offense: Feloniously wounding Patrick Roach with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
Verdict: Guilty
Link: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/NamesIndex/1521178

POLICE GAZETTE NOTICES



Patrick Lamb, discharged 15 May 1878, F.C. free with conditions, residue of sentence remitted
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime for Police (Police gazette) J. Barnard Gov. printer

1878: Patrick Lamb remarries
Patrick Lamb was photographed by police photographer Thomas J. Nevin at the Hobart Supreme Court on Lamb's arraignment and sentencing to 3 years' imprisonment, 10th February 1876. Nevin would have been more than a little interested in proceedings since fellow photographer Stephen Spurling I (1821–1892) was also arraigned in the same session, on trial for obtaining credit under false pretences (see Case 4 below). Patrick Lamb was discharged at the Hobart Gaol in the week ending 15 May 1878.

Soon after his release from prison, Patrick Lamb, widower, married 21 year old Mary McGinley* on 31 August 1878 at Hobart. (*Source: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/RGD37-1-37/RGD37-1-37P149).


CASE 3: John Nowlan as Dowling
This prisoner stated that he arrived free to the colony of Tasmania as a sailor on the Bangalore with the name John Dowling, but he might have arrived as a convict with the name John Nowlan on the transport London in March 1851. Shipping documents testifying to his arrival on the Bangalore at any port and under any circumstance unfortunately, if true, are not extant. He was previously sentenced for indecent assault on a girl under 12 years to five years' incarceration in March 1870 as John Dowling.

The Legislation
Under the ACT of 1863 - AN ACT to consolidate and amend the Legislative Enactments relating to Offences against the Person. [31 July, 1863.] - John Nowlan alias Dowling was sentenced to five years in 1870 for the indecent assault of Deloranie Boss, a girl under 12 years of age. The first count - intent to commit a rape - would have incurred a sentence of ten years, but he was sentenced instead on the second count of indecent assault which should have incurred the full sentence of seven years instead of five: see Clauses 48, 49, and 50 of the Act.

Six years later, when found guilty of having committed a rape on Caroline Agnes Welch, 10 years of age in 1876, the full force of the law - Clause 45, the death sentence - was applied, yet a reprieve followed. The sentence of death on John Nowlan alias Dowling was commuted to life in prison. There were increasingly urgent protests from the public and the press to cease sentencing prisoners to death, but that in itself was not the reason for his reprieve, the details of which were kept from the public.

THE CONVICT NOWLAN.- In reporting that the Chief justice had "passed" sentence of death on Nowlan, for criminal assault on a child, an error was made. It should have been that the sentence of death was "recorded", a very different thing, in so far as the convict is concerned.

Source: THE MERCURY. (1876, February 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8943037



Prisoner DOWLING, John, also recorded as John NOWLAN
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Ref: Q15586
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin, December 1874



Verso: Prisoner DOWLING, John, also recorded as John NOWLAN
Not "Taken at Port Arthur"; taken at the Mayor's Court, December 1874
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Ref: Q15586
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin



Details:

"Supreme Court, Hobart Town. List of prisoners arraigned at the above-named Court on the 10th, 11th and 12th of February, 1876. Names, Nowlan John, as Dowling; Age 45; Ship Bangalore; Conditions F.C.; Offences Rape; How Disposed of; Death recorded."

Source: Tasmanian Reports of Crime for Police (police gazette), J. Barnard, Gov't printer

This prisoner was photographed as John Dowling by T. J. Nevin on release from the House of Corrections, Hobart Town in December 1874. Dowling was convicted again in February 1875 for larceny. A year later, in February 1876 he was convicted at the Supreme Court, Hobart, for rape of a girl between 10-11 yrs old, this time as John Nowlan, alias John Dowling. The sentence for rape was death, commuted to life imprisonment. John Nowlan alias John Dowling was sent to the Port Arthur prison 60 kms south of Hobart on 25th February 1876 and transferred back to the House of Corrections, Hobart Gaol, Campbell St. on 17th April 1877. A prisoner who called himself John Dowling died at the New Town Charitable Institution, Hobart in 1906 of senilis

The Mugshot
Thomas J. Nevin's photograph of John Dowling was taken at the Mayor's Court, December 1874 on Dowling receiving a certificate of freedom. Just one photograph of the prisoner appears to have survived, suggesting Nevin used the 1874 negative to produce reprints for Dowling's sentencing in 1875 and again in 1876. This photograph by Nevin of John Dowling is now held in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection (Ref: Q15586). It was originally acquired by convictarian and landscape photographer John Watt Beattie from government estrays in the early 1900s for display in his "Port Arthur Museum" located in Hobart and for inclusion in travelling exhibitions associated with the fake convict hulk "Success" to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Hobart.

J. W. Beattie's collection of more that 300 Tasmanian prisoner mugshots, taken originally by T. J. Nevin in the 1870s, including this one of John Nowlan as Dowling, was acquired by the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania (QVMAG) in the 1930s. The capture by Nevin on glass in the one and only sitting with Dowling in 1874 was reprinted as a sepia cdv in a buff mount to be pasted to the prisoner's charge sheet in the first instance, its principal use. When Beattie organised exhibitions of these mugshots in the early 1900s, the versos of at least two hundred mugshots were duly inscribed with this fake information - "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" - purely to whet the appetite of tourists taking penal heritage tours to Port Arthur. As artefacts associated with Marcus Clarke's novel, For The Term of His Natural Life, published in 1874, two silent versions of which were filmed on location at the Port Arthur prison in 1907 and 1927, these mugshots were re-invented with false information to heighten the tourist's experience - a commercial imperative which has certainly waxed rather than waned in recent decades. Read more about John Nowlan alias Dowling here in this post


CASE 4: photographer Stephen Spurling snr
The reporter for the Tasmanian Tribune (12 Feb 1876) quietly stated a disturbance had taken place in the jury room during the trial of photographer Stephen Spurling. It was much more than a disturbance, according to the Mercury's report of 12 February, 1876. It was "high jinks" and scuffles rising "to a high pitch of excitement". It was the non-smokers forcing a window open, of broken shutters and a chair thrown out onto the street in a desperate attempt to escape the stench of the smokers' "weed".

TRANSCRIPT

CRIMINAL SESSIONS.
Friday,11th February, 1876.

FIRST COURT.
Before His Honor, Sir Francis Smith, Chief Justice.

OBTAINING GOODS BY FALSE PRETENCES.
The jury in the case of Stephen Spurling, sen. having been locked up for the night, were brought in, and in reply to the usual question, the foreman (Mr T W Palmer ) stated that they had not agreed, nor was there any prospect of them doing so.

His Honour said he supposed he might take it that the jury had given the case that consultation which the law required. He did not feel justified in discharging them on the previous night in consequence of the reported disturbance in the jury room making it quite clear that some part of the time had not been passed in deliberation,

The jury was then discharged.

In reply His Honor the Attorney-General said he did not propose this session to proceed further with the charge, but he should have time to consider the case.

The defendant was accordingly released on bail, himself in £30, and his two sons in £25 each.

Source: LAW. (1876, February 12). The Tasmanian Tribune (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1872 - 1876), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article200369705

THE MERCURY REPORT

A LIVELY JURY.-It was rumoured on Thursday night that the jury in the case of Stephen Spurling, senr., had been playing up high jinks in the retiring room, and as it was well-known that that was the reason why the Chief Justice ordered them to be locked up for the night, there was considerable speculation as to how the jury had been spending their time during the alleged disturbance. When they were brought up yesterday morning, His Honour, before discharging them, as they had been unable to agree, asked them whether they had any explanation to make of their conduct in the jury room. The foreman, Mr. J. W. Palmer, of Bagdad, said the jury sincerely regretted that any disturbance should have taken place, and tendered an explanation. It was to the effect that the jury were divided on the smoking question. The smokers naturally indulged in their favourite pastime, and the non-smokers, not being at all partial to the weed, suffered severe qualms. The result was that, after submitting to be enveloped in smoke for some time, the non-smokers determined to open the window. They were prevented from doing so, and a little scuffling ensued ; but eventually the window was forced open, and one of the shutters broken. The mysterious part of the affair however is that somebody threw one of the chairs out of the window, a feat respecting which nothing was said by the foreman, and we are left to infer that at one time matters had risen to a high pitch of excitement. At all events, His Honor accepted the apology, and was kind enough to say that, on consideration, no one could be guilty of bringing deliberate discredit upon an institution which was the pride of Englishmen all over the world.

Source: THE MERCURY.(1876, February 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8943037

THE CHARGES

OBTAINING GOODS BY FALSE PRETENCES.—Stephen Spurling, senior, was charged by Thomas Edgar Creswell, solicitor, with having on the 27th February, 1875, unlawfully, and knowingly, falsely pretend that Stephen Spurling, his son, was indebted to him in a large amount, to wit, over £100, by means of which false pretence, he obtained from Messrs. P. O. Fysh and Co. certain goods on credit, whereas, in truth, the said Stephen Spurling, junior, was not in any way indebted to the said Stephen Spurling, senior. The prosecution was under the 13th section of the Debtors Act.
Mr. Crisp appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Bromby for the defence.
Philip Samuel Seager, clerk to the Registrar of the Supreme Court, produced the order of adjudication of Stephen Spurling the elder, which was taken on the 12th August last. He was adjudicated a bankrupt upon the petition of Stephen Spurling the younger. Witness produced the affidavit of debt of Stephen Spurling, junior, and one of Messrs. P. O. Fysh and Co.
Thomas Edgar Creswell, solicitor of the Supreme Court, deposed that he was trustee in the proceedings against the defendant. He produced the order of adjudication.
By Mr. Bromby: Messrs. Burgess and Fysh were the two creditors who were anxious to prosecute the defendant. The majority of the creditors did not wish to take proceedings.
Robert Walker deposed that he was confidential clerk to Messrs. P. O. Fysh and Co. He was present at several interviews between the defendant and Mr. Fysh, relative to the purchase of goods by defendant. On the 27th February, 1875, the defendant incurred debt for goods to the amount of £90. The defendant was then already indebted to the firm in the amount of £38 10s. When a debtor wanted further accommodation it was usual for him to make a statement as to his position and prospects of payment. Witness heard defendant tell Mr. Fysh that his son in Launceston had to send him a large sum of money, which he received at the rate of £30 per month. Defendant did not say what the amount was which his son owed him. He certainly led witness and Mr. Fysh to believe that his son owed him money. On previous occasions the defendant had stated that his son's removal to Launceston had been a great expense to him. It was on the strength of these statements that the goods were delivered to the defendant.
By Mr. Bromby: I have been in Mr. Fysh's employ for sixteen years, for nine years of which the defendant has had transactions with the firm. The goods in the last order were ordered about nine months before they were delivered. It is generally the custom to forward the invoice of the goods ordered to the customer on its arrived by the mail. On the arrival of the goods a further account, with charges added, is rendered to the purchaser. It is also a custom to send an invoice after the delivery of the goods. Witness could not say whether notice was given to the defendant of the arrival of the goods. The bill for £38 10s. had been several times renewed, and was due on the 4th January, so that the defendant had called between that day and the 27th February about the renewal of this bill. The bill for £38 10s. was renewed for the 4th of April. For the goods arranged for on the 27th February, it was agreed that one-half should be covered by a bill at four months, and the other half at six months.
Re-examined: By the defendant's statements we knew that he was getting money from his son, and up to the 27th February he stated that his son had to send him money.
By the Bench: The bills at four and six months were not signed until the goods had been delivered.
Mr. Spurling became a debtor of the firm from the time of the delivery of the goods and not before.
Stephen Spurling jun., deposed that he was a son of the defendant. Witness removed to Launceston in 1873. At that time, the defendant was responsible for witness's bills which he (the defendant) afterwards paid. During the period witness had been in business in Launceston witness had become the defendant's creditor for cash and goods to the amount of £200. Accounts were never balanced between witness and the defendant when witness left Hobart Town. Defendant was then indebted to witness for wages whilst defendant was responsible for witness's debts. Witness sent his father during two years about £300. The bills which the defendant paid for witness amounted to £50. Witness was not aware that these bills were not mentioned in his father's books. Witness did not owe his father £200 during February, 1875, or for nine months before that time, but he could not say whether he owed the defendant anything then. The defendant had been witness's debtor in some amount for 18 months.
By Mr. Bromby: My father partly set me up in business in Launceston, and has acted well to me. It was always understood that I should assist him in every way. I sent him sums of money from the beginning of 1875 till the time he was bankrupt and would have sent him more had he asked for it, and I had had it.
The case was adjourned until Friday next.

Source: CITY POLICE COURT. (1876, January 13). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 3.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8942378

SUPREME COURT RECORD



Source: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/SC32-1-9/SC32-1-9P235 Image 214

TRANSCRIPT

No. 1 Crt
Stephen Spurling = plea not guilty
Jury - [12 names listed]
[Annotation illegible next to] 27 Feb 1875 - unlawfully obtg goods by false pretences from R. V. Fysh (representing his son Stephen Spurling owed him £200) and Ct obtg goods by false pretences
Verdict -[ blank - but  Nolle prosequi recorded]

[No. 1 - commuted to imprsmt for life - John Nolan - sentence death recorded.]

Dept Sheriff reported the misconduct of the jury
At 10 o'clock the jury not being agreed they were ordered to be kept together until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning- they were given in charge of John Lewis Thos Cook Fred Thornhill & Richd Walker
The prisoner was discharged on bail till 10 o'clock tomorrow himself in £50.. .Stephen Spurling & Fred Spurling in £25 each [two sons of Stephen Spurling]

Crt adjourned till 10 o'clock tomorrow morning

Friday 11th February 1876
The Court met this morning at 10 o'clock
No. 1 Crt
Re Spurling The jurors answered to their names & the defendant placed in the dock - The jury not being agreed they were discharged & the prisoner admitted to Bail till next session himself in £50 & his two sons in for £25 each.

Biography: Stephen Spurling 1 (1821–1892)

... By 1875 Stephen 1st was once again facing bankruptcy. During the subsequent sale of his assets, fellow photographer Alfred Winter purchased his negative collection. For the next decade, Winter advertised Spurling portrait and landscape prints and enlargements for sale.

From 1875 onwards, Stephen 1st’s career was in decline. In 1881, he attempted to re-establish his studio, but this venture proved unsuccessful. By 1886, the deterioration in his mental health, combined with his impending paralysis, led to his admission to the asylum at New Norfolk. It is possible he was suffering from the long term effects of chemicals, such as mercury, which he had used during his early photographic experiments. He remained incarcerated until his death, from congestion of the kidneys, at the age of seventy, on 13 April 1892.

Source: Christine Burgess, 'Spurling, Stephen (1821–1892)', Obituaries Australia,
National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
Link: https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/spurling-stephen--1578

Additional Resources

1. C. H. Burgess, The Spurling Legacy and the Emergence of Wilderness Photography in Tasmania, PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2010. Link: https://doi.org/10.25959/23211710.v1
2. 'Insolvent Court', Mercury (Hobart), 3 October 1861, p 2
3. 'Supreme Court: Bankruptcy Jurisdiction', Mercury (Hobart), 16 October 1875, p 2.
4. 'City Police Court: Obtaining Goods by False Pretences', Mercury (Hobart), 13 January 1876, p 3




Burgess, Christine (2024) Photographs by Spurling's: A Treasure Trove of Tasmanian Images
(Forty South Publishing Pty Ltd. fortysouth.com)
Page 1: cdv of Stephen Spurling 1
Photo copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2024
(Many thanks for your acknowledgement, Christine).

CASE 4: Honora Tracey alias Borland
The jury was dismissed since no unanimity was reached among them as to Honora Tracey's guilt in the charge of perjury. As noted by the press, they were locked up until 10 o'clock on the night of the case, presumably to retire to their respective homes and when they returned the next day -

- they were so positive as to there being no chance of any unanimity, that it was evident they were afraid of being confined for the night. His Honor noticed this, and told them that it was his duty to see that the facilities of discharge were not such as to make them an impediment to justice. In olden times, he added, juries were locked up till they did agree, and that without anything to eat and without fire - a piece of information which caused the jury men to look as if they expected to be treated in a similar manner. His Honor, however, was lenient, for, after expressing an opinion that if this difficulty continued, it would be necessary to consider whether juries should be allowed to separate at all before coming to some decision, he discharged the jury

Source: THE MERCURY. (1876, February 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8943037



TRANSCRIPT

PERJURY
Quodling v. Tracey.— This was an information charging Honora Tracey with having committed wilful and corrupt perjury in her evidence in a case heard before the Police Bench on the 11th inst., wherein James Tracey was, charged with having wounded one Emma Bridges on the head by fracturing her skull with a stone. The case was partially heard on the previous day, and Mr Bromby appeared for the accused. After hearing a large amount of evidence, for and against, the Bench committed the woman Tracey to take her trial at the next Criminal Sessions.

Source: LAW. (1875, December 18). The Tasmanian Tribune (Hobart Town, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article200367243

Addenda

1. The ship "Bella Mary"



Source: Maritime Museum of Tasmania
Link: https://ehive.com/collections/3906/objects/207119/clock-from-the-bella-mary-captain-copping
Name/Title Clock from the Bella Mary, Captain Copping
Bella Mary was named after Bella Mary Copping, niece of Captain R. Copping.
Measurements 250mm Object number A_1984-377

Bella Mary, a barque built 1862 at Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, tonnage 266, was registered to Edward Lucas and others, Hobart Town and traded regularly to New Zealand under command of Captain Richard Copping until Captain George McArthur took over in 1871.

In August 1873, a year before skipper George McArthur was tried and acquitted of raping Eliza Ann McKenzie, a shipment of salmon trout ova sent from Tasmania on the Clematis, was accompanied by Stephen Budden on behalf of the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, departing 29th August, and a second shipment of 500 brown trout ova destined for the Auckland Climatisation Society left on the Bella Mary on the 23rd August 1873. This advertisement from the Auckland Star, September 1874 among many others in the same issue indicates that the usual freight from Tasmania to New Zealand was varieties of apples, tins of jams from Peacock's and Creswell's, hops, almonds, bark, palings etc etc.



On a voyage to Auckland in 1875, the Bella Mary took a Tasmanian devil to show New Zealanders a native animal, but it jumped ship at anchor and disappeared into the bush. The Bella Mary was wrecked at Fiji in 1886: (SMH 18 March 1886; Harry O'May 1978:110-111).

TRANSCRIPT

WRECK OF THE BARQUE BELLA MARY.
By the A. S. N. Company's steamship Gunga, which arrived in port last night from Fiji, news has come to hand of the wreck of the barque Bella Mary, belonging to Mr. G. J. Waterhouse, of this city. The Gunga also brings the commander and crew of the Bella Mary, which, it appears, struck on a reef about 16 miles from Suva, on the 2nd instant, at 8.30 p.m., and became a total wreck. At the time of the accident she was on a voyage from Suva to Levuka, having left the former port at 2 p.m. on the 2nd instant. The Bella Mary was a wooden vessel of 243 tons register, and was built in Nova Scotia in 1862. The wreck of the ship was sold for £7 10s,, and the cargo for £30.

Source: WRECK OF TUE BARQUE BELLA MARY. (1886, March 18). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW), p. 10.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13614498



Source: National Gallery of Australia
Title: Samuel Clifford, Tasmanian bush 'devil'
Stereograph, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, 1870s acquired by Nigel Lendon by 1983 -
- who sold it to the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1983
Link: https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/object/6407

2. Chalmers Free Church, Hobart, Tasmania
Patrick Lamb married Jane McKinsie on 13 May 1869 at Chalmer's Church, Hobart, his occupation listed as "soldier".



Chalmers Free Church, Hobart, ca. 1890 [frame cropped]
Source: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/Archives/NS3503-1-14

A BRIEF HISTORY

A split in the Church of Scotland in 1843, the so-called “Great Disruption”, played out across the Empire. In Tasmania not one of the Church of Scotland ministers supported the Free Church which led to a number of individuals at Hobart applying to the Free Church of Scotland to send a minister to the colony.

Supporters of the Free Church of Scotland erected the Chalmers churches in Hobart and Launceston, named after their Scottish leader, Thomas Chalmers. Chalmers Church at Hobart opened in 1852 followed by Chalmers Launceston in 1860.

In April 1851 Reverend W. Nicolson arrived at Hobart and commenced preaching at the Mechanic’s Institute Hall, where he drew a significant following. This led to an appeal to build Hobart’s first Free Church of Scotland. The foundation stone for a church was laid in October 1851.

The opening of Hobart Chalmers Church was reported by the Hobarton Guardian:

“The work is in the modern Gothic style, and according to a very chaste and tasteful design. The building is most creditable both to the architect and contractor, and will be a great improvement to the city where it stands. It accommodates about 750 persons, and, we understand, a great portion of the sittings were let in the course of a few hours, on the first day appointed for that purpose. The cost will be about £2000, the greater part of which has been already raised—having been entirely accomplished by voluntary subscription. Mr. Nicolson is also supported by the voluntary liberality of his hearers, and receives no pay from the Government. The foundation stone of this handsome church was laid on the 3rd October last, on which occasion Mr. Nicolson gave an exposition of the principles of the Free Church. The Church stands at the corner of Harrington and Bathurst-streets, in an elevated situation, and commanding a view of most beautiful scenery…”

“The interior is fitted up in a style of tasteful elegance—the pulpit is ornamental Gothic, and has a remarkably chaste and beautiful appearance: it, as well as the galleries, was hung with crimson drapery. During the evening service, the church was illuminated by several elegant chandeliers…. The congregations, both in the morning and afternoon, were very numerous, but in the evening, a dense crowd filled the sacred edifice. It was indeed a goodly sight to witness so many congregated together to offer adoration to the Most High—young and old, rich and poor, learned and illiterate, all joining in praising Him to whom all praise alone is due; and what enhanced the pleasure was to know that many were not of the Free Church of Scotland—this is as it ought to be…”

Born out of division, Chalmers' end came out of union. Over the course of the 19th century efforts were made to promote union between the two Presbyteries in Tasmania. This was finally accomplished in 1896, with the Presbyterian Church of Tasmania uniting all congregations of an undivided Church. In 1935 Chalmers’ congregation united with St Andrew’s Church to form Hobart’s Scots Church. Initially services alternated between the two churches but in 1949 services were limited to the Scots (St Andrew's) Church.

With the end of services at Chalmers, the building was put up for sale in 1952 and purchased by the Neptune Oil Company. The church was demolished in 1955 and the site was used to build a service station. Several stained glass windows were taken from the Chalmers church before its demolition and were later installed in the gallery of the Scots Church. The Scots Church pulpit sits on stone taken from Chalmers church while the stone font is also from Chalmers Church.

Source: https://www.churchesoftasmania.com/2019/04/no-399-chalmers-free-church-hobart-born.html

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