"T. NEVIN PHOTO" - Thomas J. Nevin's blindstamp impress on stereographs 1860s-1870s

These stereographs taken by Thomas J. Nevin and stamped recto with his blindstamp impress - "T. NEVIN PHOTO" - over a decade in the 1860s-1870s are held in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery collections.

T. J. Nevin's studio, 140 Elizabeth Street Hobart Town
This is one of two different views of Thomas Nevin's studio and shop, extreme right of frame, situated at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart, three doors from Patrick Street, next door to the Standard Hotel at 142 Elizabeth Street on the corner.



Above: a view of Thomas Nevin's studio and shop, extreme right of frame, operating as the City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart, Tasmania.
Stereograph by T. J. Nevin ca. 1867-70
The dark building next door at 138 Elizabeth St., Nevin's residence, was leased from A. E. Biggs
"T. NEVIN PHOTO" blindstamp impress on lower centre of mount. Verso blank.
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.12

The Trip to Adventure Bay 1872
Copies of this series were collected by Jean Porthouse Graves, daughter of solicitor and townsman John Woodcock Graves the younger, the organizer of this VIP trip to Adventure Bay, 31 January 1872. Thomas J Nevin was commissioned to produce a series of group photographs for the visitors which he also advertised for sale in the press the  following week.   

These copies are held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. This group portrait of the VIPs on board the City of Hobart was especially commissioned. It not only carries Nevin's blindstamp on the mount at right, it is also stamped verso with his government contractor stamp.



Above: stereograph, group portrait of the VIPS by T. J. Nevin
Day-trippers to Adventure Bay on board the City of Hobart 31st January 1872
"T. NEVIN PHOTO" blindstamp impress recto on right hand side
Verso with T. J. Nevin’s government contractor’s stamp with Royal Arms insignia.
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Ref: Q1994.56.2



Above: verso of stereograph of the group portrait of VIPS by T. J. Nevin
Day-trippers to Adventure Bay on board the City of Hobart 31st January 1872
"T. NEVIN PHOTO" blindstamp impress recto on right hand side
Verso shows T. J. Nevin’s government contractor’s stamp with Royal Arms insignia.
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Ref: Q1994.56.2.backed.

Below: another configuration with more members of the VIP group at Adventure Bay, 31st January 1872. The man laughing, sitting between the Hon. Alfred Kennerley (lower left) and Sir John O'Shanassy, is Hugh Munro Hull, Parliamentary librarian. He seems to have appreciated comments coming from Thomas Nevin at the point of capture, while Sir John O'Shanassy (with stick), reads on, oblivious. The figure running into the scene at centre is John Woodcock Graves (the younger), organiser of the excursion.



Nevin's blindstamp impress "T. NEVIN PHOTO" is on the mount at centre.
This stereo is badly water-damaged.
It is held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Ref: Q1994.56.24.
Photo taken at TMAG 10th November 2014
Photo copyright © KLW NFC 2014 ARR
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.24

This group photograph (below) of the colonists at Adventure Bay,  31st January 1872, show men of premier social status dressed in full Victorian attire from head to toe photographed in reclining and recumbent poses. These captures by Thomas Nevin of Sir John O'Shanassy and Sir James Erskine Calder lolling about in bush surroundings are quite remarkable.



Above: another group photograph of the colonists at Adventure Bay 31st January 1872
Figures on lower left, recumbent: John Woodcock Graves jnr and Sir John O'Shanassy
Between them: John Graves' teenage daughter, Jean Porthouse Graves
Above her in topper: Robert Byron Miller (whose son Francis Knowles Miller she married in 1885)
On right: sitting with stick, Hon. Alfred Kennerley, Mayor of Hobart.
Head in topper only on extreme right: Sir James Erskine Calder.

Stereograph in double oval buff mount with "T. NEVIN PHOTO"  blindstamp impress in centre
Verso is blank.
Photo taken at TMAG 10th November 2014
Photo copyright © KLW NFC 2014 ARR
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Ref: Q1994.56.5

Along the River Derwent
These stereographs were printed in commercial numbers by both Thomas J. Nevin and his friend and colleague, Samuel Clifford for the tourist trade.



TMAG Catalogue notes (online until 2006)
Ref: Q1994.56.21
ITEM NAME: Photograph:
MEDIUM: sepia stereoscope salt paper print
MAKER: T Nevin [Artist]
DATE: 1870s
DESCRIPTION : Scene near New Norfolk ?
INSCRIPTIONS & MARKS: Impressed on front: T Nevin/ photo
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection Ref: Q1994.56.21



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



Ferns, ferns and more ferns
At least five stereographs of ferns by Thomas J. Nevin are held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, dated to ca. 1870. Prints of these stereographs were produced by the hundreds; some were imprinted recto with his blindstamp "T. NEVIN PHOTO", others of the same image were left blank. T:



FERNS: T. Nevin impress "T. NEVIN PHOTO" on left side mount
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.13



FERNS: TMAG Ref: Q16826.34



FERNS: TMAG Ref: Q16826.30.1.backed
Verso inscription: " Ferns Kangaroo Valley"



FERNS: TMAG Ref: Q16826.30.1



FERNS. One of many stereographs by Thomas J. Nevin showing ferns in summer and winter around the foothills and valleys of kunanyi/Mt Wellington
Stereograph on arched buff mount ca. 1868
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection TMAG Ref: Q16826-31-1



FERNS: TMAG Ref: Q16826.31.2



The blindstamp:

T. NEVIN
PHOTO

Charles Darwin on Tasmanian Ferns
In this extract from his journal, Charles Darwin expressed amazement at the Tasmanian ferns he encountered on his walk around Mount Wellington:

From Chapter XIX:
Extract from Charles Darwin's account of his visit to Hobart, February 1836 aboard the Beagle.
Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle. (London : H. Colburn, 1839.)

"The Beagle stayed here ten days, and in this time I made several pleasant little excursions, chiefly with the object of examining the geological structure of the immediate neighbourhood.

The main points of interest consist, first in some highly fossiliferous strata, belonging to the Devonian or Carboniferous period; secondly, in proofs of a late small rise of the land; and lastly, in a solitary and superficial patch of yellowish limestone or travertin, which contains numerous impressions of leaves of trees, together with land-shells, not now existing. It is not improbable that this one small quarry includes the only remaining record of the vegetation of Van Diemen's Land during one former epoch.

The climate here is damper than in New South Wales, and hence the land is more fertile. Agriculture flourishes; the cultivated fields look well, and the gardens abound with thriving vegetables and fruit-trees. Some of the farmhouses, situated in retired spots, had a very attractive appearance. The general aspect of the vegetation is similar to that of Australia; perhaps it is a little more green and cheerful; and the pasture between the trees rather more abundant.

One day I took a long walk on the side of the bay opposite to the town: I crossed in a steamboat, two of which are constantly plying backwards and forwards. The machinery of one of these vessels was entirely manufactured in this colony, which, from its very foundation, then numbered only three and thirty years! Another day I ascended Mount Wellington; I took with me a guide, for I failed in a first attempt, from the thickness of the wood. Our guide, however, was a stupid fellow, and conducted us to the southern and damp side of the mountain, where the vegetation was very luxuriant; and where the labour of the ascent, from the number of rotten trunks, was almost as great as on a mountain in Tierra del Fuego or in Chiloe. It cost us five and a half hours of hard climbing before we reached the summit. In many parts the Eucalypti grew to a great size, and composed a noble forest.

In some of the dampest ravines, tree- ferns flourished in an extraordinary manner; I saw one which must have been at least twenty feet high to the base of the fronds, and was in girth exactly six feet. The fronds forming the most elegant parasols, produced a gloomy shade, like that of the first hour of the night.

The summit of the mountain is broad and flat, and is composed of huge angular masses of naked greenstone. Its elevation is 3100 feet above the level of the sea. The day was splendidly clear, and we enjoyed a most extensive view; to the north, the country appeared a mass of wooded mountains, of about the same height with that on which we were standing, and with an equally tame outline: to the south the broken land and water, forming many intricate bays, was mapped with clearness before us. After staying some hours on the summit, we found a better way to descend, but did not reach the Beagle till eight o'clock, after a severe day's work. (Feb. 6, 1836: pp 486-7) "

[end of extract]

Darwin's astonishment at the magnificence of these ferns was repeated by Tasmanian photographers right through to the 1900s in endless variations. Ferns laden with snow was a particularly popular image. The State Library of Tasmania holds hundreds of photos taken by Clifford, Anson, Cawston, Abbott, Allport, Haigh, Winter, Baily and every other photographer between 1860-1880.

RELATED ARTICLES main weblog

Public Collections

• Thomas Nevin's stereography
• Fraudulent pretensions: the Boyd misattribution at SLNSW
• Red and violet: the impact of Brewster stereoscopy
• Stereographs by Clifford & Nevin at 'Narryna'
• Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery databases
• Six of Nevin’s salt paper stereos at TMAG
• Nevin and Smith stereo of Elizabeth St studio
• T. Nevin and Samuel Clifford identical views
• Rocking Stone party, Mt Wellington
• At the Salmon Ponds and Plenty
• Ferns, convicts and Charles Darwin
• Hobart Town from Lime Kiln Hill
• At Lady Franklin’s Museum, Ancanthe
• The New Town studio stamp & stereograph

Private Collections

• Nevin's big tabletop stereograph viewer
• Samuel Clifford, Thomas Nevin and two cameras

Samuel Clifford, Thomas Nevin and two cameras

CLIFFORD, Samuel and NEVIN, Thomas, on tour, Bothwell 1874.
PRIVATE COLLECTORS and ALBUMS 19th century Tasmanian photographers
ATTRIBUTION ISSUES



The DOUGLAS STEWART FINE BOOKS LTD HOBART BOOK FAIR was held on February 12-13, 2011 with three items on sale pertaining to Thomas J. Nevin's commercial photography. Their  catalogue listing for the stereograph, On Brown's River mentions the blog article posted on this blog in the following comment:

[TASMANIA] On Brown’s River: Samuel Clifford’s camera
CLIFFORD, Samuel (1827-1890)
# 564
Stereoscopic albumen print photograph, early 1860s. Each image 80 x 80 mm. Printed label verso: Views in Tasmania. Bush Scenery. S. Clifford, Photographer, Hobart Town. Inscribed in ink in period hand verso: On Brown’s River. Samuel Clifford’s camera can clearly be seen to the right of the waterfall.

As [this blog] has pointed out, this image should possibly have a double attribution, as Thomas Nevin is known to have accompanied Clifford on photographic excursions and perhaps it was Nevin who photographed Clifford's camera. However, this begs the question: if Nevin (or another photographer) photographed Clifford's camera, why did he not also photograph Clifford standing next to it?

In response, [this blog]'s thoughts on the DSFB's question:

The title "On Brown's River" verso foregrounds the locale, not people, so the bush itself was the intended subject of the image for the prospective viewer (if Clifford had written the title, that is, which he may not have done), and the camera - there were TWO - being the meta information for the viewer about the means of making the image. I note that you have decided the camera was Clifford's but where is the evidence? e.g. you say "Samuel Clifford’s camera can clearly be seen to the right of the waterfall." Where is that information written? I've gone along with this assumption (in the Nevin article) , but I'm clearly not convinced. I maintain that the representation of the photographer(s) in person or their representation by means of their possessions and skills (synecdoche) was not the primary motivation in capturing the scene, hence the absence of Clifford himself from the image, and the absence of any mention of the camera in the title on verso.

The photographer with a camera on kunanyi/Mt Wellington in this image is thought to be Samuel Clifford, published in Dan Sprod's book of Victorian and Edwardian Photographs of Hobart (1977); Sprod suggests the photographer pictured was Clifford, so who took the photograph? Again, it was probably Clifford's colleague Thomas J. Nevin.

THE BLOG POST
Below: this is the blog POST referenced by DSFB in the comment above regarding the stereograph, On Brown’s River: Samuel Clifford’s camera.

"DOUGLAS STEWART FINE BOOKS LTD HOBART BOOK FAIR was held on February 12 - 13, 2011 with three items on sale pertaining to Thomas J. Nevin's commercial photography.

STEREOGRAPH of CLIFFORD'S CAMERA
The first was this stereograph attributed to Samuel Clifford but ostensibly showing Clifford's camera. Who took the photograph? Did Clifford carry two cumbersome cameras with him into this dense bush setting at Brown's River, or was he accompanied - as so often he was around Tasmania - by Thomas Nevin? If so, the stereograph deserves the double attribution of Clifford & Nevin, an inscription which appears on the verso of several stereographs and portraits held in both private and public collections.



Below: Catalogue detail of image



CATALOGUE ENTRY
25. CLIFFORD, Samuel (1827-1890). On Brown’s River: Mr. Clifford’s camera.
Stereoscopic albumen print photograph, early 1860s. Each image 80 x 80 mm.
Printed label verso: Views in Tasmania. Bush Scenery. S. Clifford, Photographer, Hobart Town
Inscribed in ink in period hand verso: On Brown’s River.
Samuel Clifford’s camera can clearly be seen to the right of the waterfall.



From the catalogue
DOUGLAS STEWART FINE BOOKS LTD
HOBART BOOK FAIR
February 12 - 13, 2011

POLICE NOTICE: CLIFFORD'S STOLEN CAMERA
Samuel Clifford's name appears only twice in the weekly police gazettes, called Tasmania Reports of Crimes Information for Police between the years 1866-1880, and in both instances because he was a victim of theft: some silver cutlery and a table cloth were stolen from his house and reported on 17th October 1873, and most heart breaking of all, his camera was stolen while staying at the Wilmot Arms at Green Ponds, in the district where these stereographs of the Salmon Ponds were taken. No doubt Samuel Clifford and Thomas Nevin made many trips to the Green Ponds area, and since Clifford reprinted so many of Nevin's commercial negatives from 1876, placing an accurate date and even a sole attribution to Clifford on the extant albums of views etc is far from straightforward.



Notice in the police gazette of 15th November, 1878:
Samuel Clifford's camera stolen from the Wilmot Arms at Green Ponds

For example, this album bears Samuel Clifford's name, and it was no doubt compiled by Walch's printers and booksellers who sold it to the May family (name inscribed on inside cover) but several photographs in the album are prints from Nevin's original stereographs, eg. this one held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery with his impress on left of the buff mount:



TMAG Catalogue notes (online until 2006)
Ref: Q1994.56.21
ITEM NAME: Photograph:
MEDIUM: sepia stereoscope salt paper print ,
MAKER: T Nevin [Artist];
DATE: 1870s
DESCRIPTION : Scene near New Norfolk ?
INSCRIPTIONS & MARKS: Impressed on front: T Nevin/ photo





Album: Tasmanian Scenes, S. Clifford Photographer
Held at the Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office (TAHO)
Photos © KLW NFC 2012 ARR

Only months prior to the theft of his camera, Samuel Clifford had offered his stock etc for auction, per this notice in the Mercury, 4th March 1878:



Samuel Clifford auction of his photographic stock in trade 
Mercury 4th March 1878

THE BOTHWELL EXCURSION 1874
The second item at the DSFB Hobart Book Fair, a stereograph attributed to Clifford of Bothwell school children may also have been taken by Nevin with Clifford in the final week of September 1874, when they were passing through Bothwell, 45 miles north of Hobart. They were enjoined to photograph the procession of Templars attending a large meeting. The Mercury, reported their arrival in the town in a long account of the meeting, published on 26 September, 1874:



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

TRANSCRIPT

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

FAMILY PORTRAITS ALBUMS
The third item for sale at the DSFB Hobart Book Fair (2011) was a pair of albums containing photographs by Thomas J. Nevin, apparently bearing his most common studio stamp verso which included the wording "Late A. Bock" to indicate his succession to Alfred Bock's business and studio at The City Photographic Establishment from 1867 until early 1876. According to notes and information supplied by DSFB, the albums contained the following:

"140 + family portrait photographs in carte-de-visite and cabinet card formats. Identified sitters include William Barnett of Clifton House, New Norfolk, Tasmania, 1864 / Anna Barnett, Clifton House, New Norfolk, 2nd daughter of Thomas & Elizabeth Judd, Franklin, River Huon, 1864; Mr W.H. Thomas, Agnes Rivulet, Port Cygnet (early 1860s), and John Hay of Southport. Photographic studios represented include those of Frith, Nevin (late A. Bock), Spurling, J. Bishop Osborne, Winter, Wherrett, Riise & Barnett, Woolley and Anson Bros ...."

Both albums were sold to Huon Valley descendants. Did you buy these albums, or do you know who the lucky buyers were? Scans of the Nevin photographs would be appreciated enormously. Please contact us."

The purchasers (eg. Dianne Tam - diannetam67 at ancestry.com) made contact but were annoyingly vague as to where they had uploaded their scans of the collection, including the photograph by T. J. Nevin (more on this later).



RELATED ARTICLES main weblog

• Clifford & Nevin, Hobart Town: tinted cartes
• T. J. Nevin's Christmas cards 1874
• Red and violet: the impact of Brewster stereoscopy
• Stereographs by Clifford & Nevin at 'Narryna'
• T. Nevin & Samuel Clifford identical views
• Rocking Stone party, Mt Wellington
• At the Salmon Ponds and Plenty
• Teenager with tinted sprig
• Hand-tinted carte by ‘Clifford & Nevin, Hobart Town’
• Nevin's big tabletop stereograph viewer with Freemason
• Working with police and prisoners

UPDATED 3 July 2012, 9 March 2013 and 30 Sep 2021

The Photographer's wife at the studio

T.  J. NEVIN'S STUDIO, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart
PHOTOCHEMICALS & tutorials
ELIZABETH RACHEL NEVIN nee DAY portraits

"Look for a long time at what pleases you and longer still at what pains you."

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954)



Photographed from her husband Thomas J. Nevin's original.
Carte-de-visite of Elizabeth Rachel Day, ca. 1870-71.
Married on July 12, 1871 to photographer Thomas J. Nevin at Kangaroo Valley, Tas.
Copyright © KLW NFC 2003-2021

This portrait is one of six extant photographs of Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day (1847-1914) taken by her husband commercial and police photographer Thomas J. Nevin between 1865 and 1900.

Life at the Studio
In 1944, the French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) published a short story called The Photographer's Wife (La Dame du Photographe 1944), in which Mme Armand, the wife of the photographer - he who is referred to by their neighbour as "little old Big Eyes" - attempts suicide, some might think for an adulterous liaison, while she herself explains the reason as an unbearably trivial life. The drug she self-administers is not named, but at the moment when old Big Eyes raises the alarm, his hands are "all covered with hyposulphite" from a broken bottle in the studio. Hyposulphite was used in daguerreotype, ambrotype and collodion photography, one of several photochemicals including arsenic and cyanide with ready appeal to a self-poisoner. Colette set the story back in the mid 19th century at the time of Queen Alexandra whom the photographer's wife emulates in dress and manner:

Madame Armand, who had regular features, remained faithful to the high military collar and the tight, curled fringe because she had been told she looked like Queen Alexandra , only saucier. (p. 536, The Collected Stories of Colette, Phelps ed, 1983).

Queen Alexandra, queen consort of Edward VII of Great Britain, and the daughter of Christian IX of Denmark, was married to the then-Prince of Wales in 1863, while mother-in-law Queen Victoria was still in mourning. She was known for founding Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps.

Elizabeth Rachel Day's life as the wife of photographer Thomas J. Nevin in colonial Tasmania was very different from Colette's literary portrait. However, from her marriage in 1871 until her husband's residential appointment at the Hobart Town Hall in 1876, she lived and slept above a veritable factory of poisonous chemicals stored and used in her husband's studio, a double-windowed building and glasshouse with the business name of The City Photographic Establishment, located at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart.



A view of Thomas Nevin's studio, third door down on right side of Elizabeth St. Hobart
Stereograph by T. J. Nevin ca. 1867
Sepia stereoscope salt paper print T. Nevin impress
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.12



Another view of Thomas Nevin's studio, third door down on right side of Elizabeth St. Hobart
Stereograph by T. J. Nevin ca. 1867
TMAG Ref: Q1994-56-33

Thomas J. Nevin worked with poisonous chemicals on a daily basis. He shared some of the processing with his brother John (Jack) Nevin at their New Town studio in the early to mid 1860s, while he was still a bachelor and while both brothers still resided with their parents at the house built by their father at Kangaroo Valley. With the acquisition of Alfred Bock's stock and studio at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart on Bock's departure from Tasmania in 1865, Thomas Nevin moved into the residence attached to the studio, engaged another photographer Robert Smith in a partnership there briefly with the business name of Nevin & Smith (1867-68), and on Smith's departure for Victoria, commenced a serious courtship with Elizabeth Rachel Day.



Detail of below: Elizabeth Rachel Day ca. 1868



Elizabeth Rachel Day, married Thomas Nevin in 1871
Taken by Thomas Nevin at Nevin & Smith (late Bock's) ca. 1867
140, Elizabeth Street Hobart Town
Full-length portrait, carte-de-visite
Copyright © KLW NFC & The Nevin Family Collections ARR. Watermarked.

When they married in 1871, Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day moved into the residence above the studio at 140 Elizabeth St. where she remained with the first of their two children born there  - May (Mary Florence Elizabeth Nevin, b. 1872); and Sonny ( Thomas James Nevin jnr, b. 1874) - until her husband Thomas J. Nevin was appointed to the Keeper's position at the Hobart Town Hall, residency included, in 1875. Whenever Thomas Nevin was absent from the Elizabeth St. studio in 1874, on government business, for example, at the Port Arthur prison working with the Commandant-Surgeon Dr. Coverdale in preparing photographic documentation of prisoners being relocated to the city prison, the Hobart Gaol, or travelling with fellow photographer and close friend Samuel Clifford on commercial photographic excursions, Elizabeth Rachel Nevin's father - master mariner Captain James Day - would stay with her, He registered the birth of their first son - Thomas James Nevin jnr - in May 1874 during her husband's extended stay at Port Arthur (60 kms from Hobart).



Above: Stereo viewer and stereo of a photographer seated in his studio surrounded by chemicals and apparatus. From The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection. The catalogue number is written on the viewer.

For more, see these 1860s tutorials:

• The Glass House
• The Silver Sunbeam 1864
• Photographic News 1863

By mid 1875, Thomas J. Nevin had set up studios at the Hobart Gaol in Campbell Street (above the women's laundry) and at the Mayor's Court and Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall where he was soon to take up permanent residency with wife Elizabeth and the first two of his six children to survive, May (b.1872) and Thomas (b.1874), both of whom were born at the old city studio. He  advertised the sale of the studio at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart, but retained his commercial practice with Samuel Clifford, who retired in 1878 and Henry Hall Baily. On departure from the Hobart Town Hall keeper's position in 1880, Thomas J. Nevin resumed commercial and government contract photography at his New Town studio until ca. 1888.



View of  Thomas Nevin's double-windowed shop, former residence above, and glass house across the laneway.
Undated (possibly 1890s); unattributed
Courtesy State Library of Tasmania
Ref: AUTAS001126251552



Thomas Nevin's shop and glass house TO LET,
Source: Mercury 24 June 1875

TRANSCRIPT

TO LET, those eligible BUSINESS PREMISES in Elizabeth-street, presently occupied by Mr. Nevin, photographer. It is a double-windowed shop, has a large glass-house or gallery at the back, and has a side cart entrance. Apply to
G. S. CROUCH
Auctioneer

These two later photographs of a total eight extant photographs taken by Thomas J. Nevin of his wife Elizabeth Rachel Day date to ca.1878 and 1900 respectively, held in private collections:



Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day (1847-1914)
Photograph by T. J. Nevin ca. 1878 (reprint),
Copyright © KLW NFC 2010 & Private Collection



Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day (1847-1914)
Detail of painted photograph by T. J. Nevin ca. 1900
Copyright © KLW NFC 2010 & Private Collection

Addenda: common photochemicals 1860s
Source: Towler, John. The Silver Sunbeam. Joseph H. Ladd, New York: 1864. Electronic edition prepared from facsimile edition of Morgan and Morgan, Inc., Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Second printing, Feb. 1974. ISBN 871000-005

Chapter XVII.
FIXING SOLUTIONS.
Fixing solutions consist of chemical substances that dissolve the sensitized salts of silver on plates or paper, on which photographic images have been developed. The parts which form the image are covered with reduced silver, or an altered iodide or chloride of silver, which is insoluble in the fixers; whereas those parts which have not been impressed by the actinic rays are made transparent with the fixing solutions, which dissolve the opaline silver compounds, and cause the picture afterward to be unchangeable when exposed to light. The fixing solutions at present in use are: Cyanide of potassium, Hyposulphite of soda, and Sulphocyanide of ammonium.
Cyanogen.
Symbol, C2N, or Cy. Combining Proportion, 26. Spec. grav. 1.819.
This substance is properly a Bicarbide of Nitrogen; it is a very important material, as being the type of what are denominated compound salt-radicals; it was the first of this class of bodies discovered. Cyanogen is always produced in combination when an alkaline carbonate is heated with organic matter containing nitrogen. It does not exist either in a free or combined state in nature; it is a production of decomposition, in which the elements contained in it are brought together in the nascent state, in connection with some metallic base.
Preparation of Cyanogen.
This compound radical is obtained by heating either a cyanide of silver or of mercury in a flask of hard glass; a gas, the substance in question, is produced, which may be collected, by reason of its greater specific gravity than air, in a tall glass jar, by directing the outlet tube to the bottom; or it may be collected over mercury. It is colorless, but its odor is quite peculiar and characteristic. It barns with a peach-colored flame, yielding carbonic acid and nitrogen. Water dissolves four volumes of this gas, and alcohol as much as twenty-five volumes. An aqueous solution is decomposed when exposed to light into a variety of ammoniacal compounds. By the pressure of four atmospheres it is reduced to the liquid state. It combines with alkaline solutions precisely in the same way as chlorine, iodine and bromine, and gives rise to salts denominated cyanides.
Hydrocyanic Acid-Prussic Acid.
Symbol, H Cy.
This acid is obtained from the cyanides or the ferrocyanides by the superior affinity of the mineral acids for their bases in a manner similar to that by which the other hydracids are obtained. Take, for instance, three parts of the yellow prussiate of potash (ferrocyanide of potassium) in fine powder, two parts of sulphuric acid, and two of water, and distill the mixture in a flask or retort; the vapor which passes over is condensed in a receiver surrounded by ice. Prussic acid is a colorless liquid of the specific gravity of 0.6969. It is exceedingly poisonous.
Cyanide of Potassium.
Symbol, K Cy.
This substance, so exceedingly useful to the photographer, might be formed by passing the vapor of hydrocyanic acid through a solution of potassa to saturation, and then evaporating to dryness without access of air. It is formed, however, by heating ferrocyanide of potassium in an iron bottle to an intense red heat; the tube of the bottle dips into water to conduct away the gases. The cyanide of iron becomes decomposed into carbide of iron and charcoal, and its nitrogen is given off, whilst the cyanide of potassium remains undecomposed, and when melted swims on the surface of the porous black mass below. It is afterward pulverized and dissolved in boiling weak alcohol, from which it crystallizes as the alcohol cools; or whilst in a fused condition it is poured upon marble slabs and afterward broken up and bottled. This substance is almost as poisonous as hydrocyanic acid, but being a fixed salt it is easily detected in the stomach; whereas hydrocyanic acid, by reason of its volatility, seldom leaves any trace behind by which the cause of death can be recognized. This salt is decomposed by the red oxide of mercury into cyanide of mercury and potassa, showing the superior affinity of cyanogen for mercury. On this account the ordinary tests for mercury do not act on cyanide of mercury, with the exception of hydrosulphuric acid; analogous to hyposulphite of silver in which hydrochloric acid or a soluble chloride does not precipitate the chloride of silver, hydrosulphuric acid alone being capable of forming a precipitate.
Sulphocyanide of Potassium.
Symbol, Cy S2 K.
This salt is obtained by a process similar to the last with an addition of sulphur to the amount of half the weight of the ferrocyanide of potassium used. It is an excellent test of the persalts of iron, with which it produces blood-red precipitates. I do not see why this salt may not be used instead of the following as a fixer; it certainly can be more easily procured, and is no doubt just as poisonous.
Sulphocyanide of Ammonium.
Symbol, Cy S2 NH4.
This is the new fixing salt of Meynier which is said to be endowed with properties for photographic purposes as powerful as those of cyanide of potassium, without having the poisonous and otherwise deleterious properties of this salt. Meynier, I think, must have made a mistake as to this latter property. Sulphocyanide of ammonium may be formed by distilling the vapor of hydrocyanic acid into a solution of sulphide of ammonium and evaporating the solution at a very gentle heat; or still better by neutralizing hydrosulphocyanic acid by means of potassa.
Hydrosulphocyanic Acid.
Symbol, Cy S2 H.
This acid is analogous with the hydracids; it is obtained as a colorless liquid by decomposing sulphocyanide of lead by means of dilute sulphuric acid; and sulphocyanide of lead results from the decomposition of sulphocyanide of potassium with acetate of lead.
Hyposulphite of Soda.
Symbol, N4 0, S2 O2.
This very important salt is obtained by digesting sulphur in a solution of sulphite of soda, which dissolves a portion of sulphur. By slow evaporation the salt crystallizes. Hyposulphurous acid can not be isolated from any of its combinations. When this salt is pure it produces no precipitate with nitrate of baryta. The crystals contain five equivalents of water, and are soluble in a very high degree in this menstruum. Its taste is nauseous and bitter.
The photographic properties of the three salts, whose preparations have been just indicated, are to dissolve the chloride, iodide, and bromide of silver in their recently formed state, without acting as solvents on the altered chloride, iodide, and bromide, after decomposition by light and developers. In all cases of solution they form cyanide, sulphocyanide, or hyposulphite of silver, which frequently enters into combination with the solvent and gives rise to a double salt, as the hyposulphite of silver and the hyposulphite of soda, together with either chloride, bromide, or iodide of sodium. Chloride and bromide of silver are soluble to a greater extent than iodide of silver in hyposulphite of soda. Cyanide of potassium is not only a solvent of the silver salts above mentioned, but also a reducing agent; it thus produces in the ambrotype and the melainotype a whiteness in the silver film which can not be effected with hyposulphite of silver. For this reason it is regarded by many photographers as the fixing agent peculiarly adapted for collodion positives by reflected light; whereas in the negative, where the whiteness of the silver film is of little or no consequence, hyposulphite of soda is regarded as the proper fixer. Many photographers disregard these refined distinctions, and use, in consequence of the superior solvent properties of cyanide of potassium, this substance as a fixing agent indifferently for negatives and positives. But because cyanide of potassium dissolves the silver salts so easily, it has to be used in a dilute condition, and to be watched very closely, otherwise it will dissolve at the same time the fine parts of the image. Another reason why cyanide of potassium is preferred in all collodion operations, arises from the difficulty of washing the hyposulphite of soda and of silver from the collodion film; for if any trace of these salts be left, the collodion film will eventually be destroyed by crystallization taking place on its surface, accompanied with a decoloration and soiling of the image.

Source: Towler, John. The Silver Sunbeam. Joseph H. Ladd, New York: 1864. Electronic edition prepared from facsimile edition of Morgan and Morgan, Inc., Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Second printing, Feb. 1974. ISBN 871000-005

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