Clifford & Nevin at the Salmon Ponds and Plenty 1860s-1870s

CLIFFORD & NEVIN partnership
STEREOGRAPHS Tasmania 1860s-1870s

The Stereographs
Thomas J. Nevin's standard stereographic views included these photographs taken in the upper Derwent Valley from the late 1860s to the mid 1870s. This stereograph by Thomas Nevin, titled Salmon Ponds, at Plenty near New Norfolk,  which is held by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is very similar to one by Samuel Clifford. Several views of the upper reaches of the Derwent were taken by Nevin, and reprinted by Clifford.



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



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



"Junction of Plenty and Derwent Rivers"
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.14
sepia stereo salt paper print , 1870s

 The TMAG has another stereo titled Junction of Plenty and Derwent Rivers which belongs in this series, at present unattributed. It is likely to be one of Thomas J. Nevin's, and many more stereographs which have a Samuel Clifford attribution in public collections are likely to be reprints of Nevin's negatives. The State Library of Tasmania holds dozens of stereographs in a Clifford Album which include Clifford's reprints of Nevin's work around Port Arthur 1872-1873.

The Partnership
Thomas Nevin and Samuel Clifford were close friends and colleagues over a period dating from ca. 1865 to Clifford's death in 1890. A group photograph of Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin, seated, with Thomas' younger brother Constable John (Jack) Nevin extreme right standing next to a man who was probably Samuel Clifford, could have been taken at the wedding of Thomas and Elizabeth in July 1871 at the Wesleyan Chapel, Kangaroo Valley, Hobart.





Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin group portrait, July 1871
Seated, Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin
Standing extreme right younger brother Jack Nevin
Copyright © KLW NFC Imprint Private Collection 2009 ARR



Hand coloured carte-de-visite, full length of teenage girl holding a sprig of holly
Verso inscription: Clifford & Nevin Hobart Town ca late 1860s
Copyright © The Private Collection of G.T. Harrisson 2006

At some point during their long relationship, these two photographers signed the verso of several studio portraits "Clifford & Nevin, Hobart Town", extant examples of which are held in private collections and at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. It is likely that they printed these scenes for the local and intercolonial tourist trade, sharing their stock of negatives and prints from as early as 1865, and that "authorship" was secondary to the successful turnover of the commercial product. Many of Thomas J. Nevin's negatives were acquired and reprinted by Samuel Clifford in 1876 when Nevin sublet one of his studios, the former studio of Alfred Bock at 140 Elizabeth St, Hobart, to join the civil service full-time with the Hobart City Council as keeper of the Hobart Town Hall and police photographer with the Municipal Police Office, housed within the Hobart Town Hall.

Samuel Clifford inserted a notice in the Hobart Mercury, 17th January, 1876, stating that T. J. Nevin, in retiring from "Photography" had transferred his interest in his negatives to Clifford's studio, and that he would reprint any for Nevin's clients and friends on request. Nevin had retired from commercial photography while employed at the Hobart Town Hall. On leaving that position he continued working for police on contract from his studio at New Town until 1886.



TRANSCRIPT
PHOTOGRAPHY
T.J. NEVIN, in retiring from the above, begs to thank his patrons for the support he has so long received from them, and also to state that his interest in all the Negatives he has taken has been transferred to Mr S. CLIFFORD, of Liverpool-street, to whom future applications may be made.
In reference to the above, Mr T.J. Nevin's friends may depend that I will endeavour to satisfy them with any prints they may require from his negatives.
S. CLIFFORD
Source: Mercury, 17th January, 1876

The reason for this advertisement was to underscore Nevin's status as a full-time civil servant which was announced later in January 1876. As a civil servant, he was not entitled to further remuneration - "interest" as it is termed here - from his commercial photography. However, he was not long retired from commercial practice when he was called on again to do photographic work for the Municipal Police Office, located at the Town Hall, with duties as well at the Hobart Gaol. His earlier work for the Colonial Government on commission as a government contractor was to photograph prisoners on arrest, arraignment, incarceration, and discharge from the prison system. And by 1880, he was producing commercial work once more with Henry Hall Baily, another close friend while still a civil servant at the Town Hall, a fact noted by The Mercury, December 4th, 1880.

Theft of Clifford's camera 1878
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 wrenching 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.

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The Clifford & Nevin portraits with hand-colouring

TINTS and DAUBS colouring cdvs 1870s
CLIFFORD & NEVIN, photographers 1860s-1880s

Hand-colouring
Professional photographers Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) and Samuel Clifford (1827-1890) were close friends and colleagues over a period dating from ca. 1865 to Clifford's death in 1890. Both maintained photographic studios in Hobart, producing commercial stereographs in significant numbers, as well as providing the local population with studio portraits. This full length carte-de-visite portrait of a young man standing next to a kitchen chair is heavily tinted. The verso bears the handwritten inscription "Clifford and Nevin, Hobart Town". Several portraits with similar heavy colouring and the verso inscription, written in Clifford's hand, are held in private and public collections.



Full-length cdv of young man, heavily tinted with violet, bright red and dark red.
Verso inscribed "Clifford & Nevin Hobart Town"
Courtesy © The Private Collection of John & Robyn McCullagh 2006 ARR.

The colouring in this carte and others with similar provenance (northern Tasmania and Victoria) is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be the work of the studio colourist, which was not the case (McPhee QVMAG, 2007). The colouring was applied after the purchase of the print by a family member, probably by a child playing with a small hand-held stereoscopic viewer.

"Clifford & Nevin, Hobart Town"
Photo historians have assumed the relationship with Samuel Clifford was transitory, not lasting longer than ca 1870 (McPhee, QVMAG 2007), which was not the case. They have also assumed that Clifford ceased commercial practice ca. 1873 (Kerr, 1992, Long, 1995), which also appears to be incorrect. When Thomas J. Nevin advertised his retirement from commercial practice in the Mercury, 17th January 1875, on the eve of his appointment to civil service as Office and Hall Keeper for the Hobart City Council at the Hobart Town Hall, Samuel Clifford announced in the same advertisement that he had acquired T. J. Nevin's commercial negatives taken for private clients and would reprint them on request:

TRANSCRIPT
PHOTOGRAPHY:- T.J. NEVIN, in retiring from the above, begs to thank his patrons for the support he has so long received from them, and also to state that his interest in all the Negatives he has taken has been transferred to Mr S. CLIFFORD, of Liverpool-street, to whom future applications may be made. In reference to the above, Mr T.J. Nevin's friends may depend that I will endeavour to satisfy them with any prints they may require from his negatives. S. CLIFFORD.
Source: Mercury, 17th January, 1876

Samuel Clifford had not ceased practice in 1873, therefore, as most commentators have assumed, and many extant prints with Samuel Clifford's stamp or attribution are likely to be later reprints from Thomas Nevin's negatives, including Nevin's stereographs of Port Arthur (1872-1874), and of the upper Derwent Valley (late 1860s-1874). Samuel Clifford inserted another notice in the Mercury of 16th March 1878 to advertise the sale of his own photographic stock:
Tasmanian Index (Newspapers & Journals) Title: [Sale of Samuel Clifford's photographic stock] In: Mercury 16/03/1878 Page(s): 2, column 3 Notes: Transcribed from Stilwell Index (Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts) Sale of his photographic stock in trade, camera, lenses, printing frames etc., Liverpool Street. Subjects: Clifford, Samuel, 1827-1890.
Source: the Stilwell Index, State Library of Tasmania

When Samuel Clifford sold his photographic stock to commercial photographers Joshua and Henry Anson in 1878, these two brothers reprinted Clifford's negatives, among which were negatives by Nevin that Clifford had acquired in 1876. Those same negatives were reprinted again when John Watt Beattie joined the Anson brothers at their studio at Wellington Bridge in Elizabeth Street, Hobart in 1892. Beattie in turn reprinted the work of all four of these earlier photographers, often failing to attribute their work or accredit them by name.

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