Thomas J. Nevin | Tasmanian Photographer

Portraits by T. J. Nevin, 1860s-70s in Lucy Batchelor's family album

These carte-de-visite portraits taken in the late 1860s-1875 by Tasmanian photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) were collected by Lucy Batchelor and placed in her family album which she dated 1892. The first three scans were submitted here courtesy of descendants Robyn and Peter Bishop in 2009. Each cdv was scanned from the original album leaf mounted in a gold cut-out frame.

Above: unknown young man ca 1873, photographed in Nevin's studio at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town. Stamped verso with his most commonly used commercial stamp.

Above: possibly a Freemason or a Loyal United Brothers Lodge member, as was Nevin, photographed in his studio. The man here is standing next to Nevin's big box tabletop stereograph viewer which features in several portraits by Nevin of clients and one of himself standing beside it.. Hand-tinted by subsequent owners of the carte. Verso is stamped with his most used commercial stamp.

Above: unknown child with sprig of holly, photographed by Thomas Nevin mid1870s. Stamped verso with T. J. Nevin's government contractor colonial Royal Warrant. Hand-tinting with this red and green sprig motif appears in other cdv's by Thomas Nevin.

A few more cartes-de-visite in this collection may also be the work of photographer Thomas J. Nevin from the late 1860s -1875. The photographs of these two boys, are remarkably similar to Nevin's photograph of another boy from the Del Sarte family.

These cdv's of boys perched on Nevin's plinth from Lucy Batchelor's album , and those below, are identifiable as his work in terms of his studio stamp on verso; the studio decor including the plinth, his slipper chair; his big box tabletop stereoscopic viewer; and by his characteristic methods of printing pasted to a plain buff mount, and hand-colouring of clothing etc.

Carte-de-visite portraits by Thomas J. Nevin, Tasmania, 1870s
Copyright © Lucy Batchelor Album 1892, in the private collection of Peter and Robyn Bishop 2009

T. J. Nevin's prisoner mugshots, Mitchell Library NSW

Thomas Nevin's Eleven
The Mitchell Library at the State Library of NSW has catalogued eleven prisoner photographs so far which were taken by government contractor Thomas J. Nevin and his younger brother Constable John Nevin at the Hobart Gaol between 1875 and 1884.

All of these men were habitual offenders with long criminal records who spent as much if not more time in gaol as out free in service (FS). These are their mugshots, and typical of the 1000 or so originals and duplicates produced over the decade by Thomas with the assistance of his brother Constable John Nevin (William John aka Jack). The two brothers were required by the Prisons Department and Municipal Police Office to photograph men (but not women) who were arrested, arraigned at the Hobart Supreme Court, incarcerated at the Hobart Gaol, transferred from regional police offices, and discharged from the Mayor's Court and Municipal Police, Hobart Town Hall. In some instances, they photographed dead men walking, those destined to be hanged.

The exact dates on which these men were photographed, some at least twice, can be adduced from their police records published in the weekly police gazettes, called Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1865-1880 (Government Printer, James Barnard), held at the Archives Office of Tasmania. The death warrants which accompany two of these cartes-de-visite mugshots of Sutherland and Stock are held at the Mitchell Library, bound in a volume called Death Warrants V.D.L (Tasmania, Supreme Court C203).

These eleven prisoners provide information about -

the pose and framing techniques used by Thomas J. Nevin in the mid 1870s, reflective of conventional commercial portraiture

the transition period between the brothers' commercial portraiture and the regulated official prison photograph, typically a full frontal capture, dating from 1880s

the archival inscriptions and numbering which date from the library's accession into the collection of David Scott Mitchell, 1907

the library's contemporary methods of storing, pasting, mounting and cataloguing this collection etc etc

Tasmanian prisoner mugshots by Nevin 1870s

MOUNTED

Unmounted

Some carry verso T. J. Nevin's Colonial Warrant Royal Arms government stamp (two above); some have handwritten details of the crime and date of arraignment in different hands.

Two of the same man, Francis Shearin (police records show spelling variations and aliases): on left is the booking photograph 1877, on right the sentencing shot, 8 years for murder, taken in July 1878.

Shearin's sentence: Police record in Tasmania Reports of Crime 2nd August 1878

Full frontal, eyes up.

Death Warrants

Tasmanian prisoner mugshots by Nevin 1870s-80s

Booking shot of Henry Stock, executed 1884

Sutherland, full frontal shot, hand-tinted, photographed in the week before his death by hanging, May-June 1883.

RELATED POSTS main weblog

In his own words ...

"T. J. NEVIN
PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST,
Returns his sincere thanks to his friends and the public for past favours, and having made a considerable Reduction in his Prices to suit the times, he solicits a continuance of their patronage, and invites attention to his circulars, showing particulars of the small cost for a first- class faithful Likeness"
140 ELIZABETH-STREET"
Hobart Mercury, 1st February 1873

“I hope that you have not got it in your mind that I am implicated with the ghost“.
Hobart Mercury, 4 December 1880

"Defendant said that he was the father of a large number of children, and did not know which one was referred to. (Laughter.)"
Hobart Mercury, 11 August 1886

"Mr. Thos Nevin was under the impression that the police should be under stricter supervision."
Hobart Mercury, 19 July 1888.

BIOGRAPHY: professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced arge numbers of stereographs and cartes-de- visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Switzerland.

IMPORTANT NOTICES

INDIGENOUS NOTICE:
lutruwita/Tasmania/Van Diemen's Land (loo-tru-wee-ta) always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

This weblog pays respect to the ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging of the first Australian peoples and acknowledges their continued connection to land, sea and culture as the traditional custodians of this country.

Irish-born Thomas J. Nevin would have been keenly aware that the residence and photographic studio he occupied at No's 138-140 Elizabeth St. Hobart in the 1870s were built on the traditional lands, nipaluna of the palawa people. It is no small irony that today, the very same property, which is renumbered as No. 198 Elizabeth St. Hobart and is occupied by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, has returned to its traditional owners.

Looking east from the corner of Patrick St., the Royal Standard Hotel, 142 Elizabeth St. then T. J. Nevin’s studio and residence, 140-138 Elizabeth St. Hobart, 1870s

We also acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the City of Sydney, and the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, the traditional custodians of the Kamberri/Canberra region on whose lands this site is maintained.

PLEASE NOTE: images on this weblog represent deceased people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Viewing such images may cause sadness and distress.

DISCLAIMER: We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of T. J. Nevin's prisoner/convict photographs (300+ extant) to the non-photographer A. H. Boyd, nor do we condone any attempts by public institutions or private individuals to co-opt the work on these Thomas J. Nevin weblogs and associated sites to apply the misattribution.

Anthony Trollope at Port Arthur

Thomas Nevin's VIP commission 1872

VISIT TO PORT ARTHUR.- Mr. Trollope and the Hon. Howard Spensly, Esq., Solicitor-General of Victoria, accompanied the Hon. the Premier, J.M. Wilson, Esq., and the Hon. the Attorney-General, W.R. Giblin, Esq., embarked in the Government schooner late last night, some time after Mr. Trollope had concluded his lecture on "Modern Fiction, as a recreation for young people," and left for Port Arthur. Their visit to the Peninsula will be a very hurried one, and will afford them only scant opportunity of inspecting the penal establishment, it being the intention of Messrs. Trollope and Spensly to leave Hobart Town for the North, en route for Victoria in a few days ...

Source: The Mercury 2 February 1872