Thursday, February 21, 2008

Prisoner portraits taken at trial and discharge 1870s



The cartes-de-visite in oval mounts and negative prints of Tasmanian prisoners taken as police identification photographs, many of which survive as originals, duplicates and copies in public collections, some bearing numbers from 1 to more than 300 on recto or verso, and correctly attributed historically and in the modern era to commercial photographer and government contractor Thomas J. Nevin in 1977, were registered at the Mayor's Court, Municipal Police Office, located at the Hobart Town Hall, and at the Supreme Court adjacent to the Hobart Town Gaol when Thomas Nevin, with his brother Constable John Nevin's assistance. was contracted on commission as police photographer from the early 1870s to the mid 1880s.

Intended Purpose
For use by police:
An examination of the criminal history of the individual prisoners whose photographs survive indicates that each photograph was selected, even salvaged by archivists because each man had been committed and sentenced at the Tasmanian Supreme Court for a lengthy term. If sentenced at the Supreme Court in Launceston for longer than 3 months, he was transferred to the Hobart Gaol where he was bathed, shaved, photographed and isolated for one month in silence after being received, along with those already sentenced in criminal sittings of the Hobart Supreme Court. The Hobart Mercury of July 8, 1882 described these past practices in detail:



The "Supreme Court men":
Hobart Mercury July 8, 1882

All such men were termed "Supreme Court men". Their photographs survive because an archivist or historian compiled the collection on the basis of the notoriety of the offense years later, ca. 1900, writing the date "1874" and "Taken at Port Arthur" on the versos, when clearly this was not the case. The use of a generic date "1874" and the infamous penal establishment "Port Arthur" were words intended solely to appeal to tourists and museum visitors, probably written by Beattie or Searle ca. 1916 for display in Beattie's "Port Arthur Museum", located at 51 Murray St. Hobart. Three historical documents were used by these 1900s compilers of the extant collections: the prisoner's record on arrival as a transported convict (Conduct Registers), the Tasmanian Police Gazettes, and the Parliamentary report - Nominal Return of all Prisoners whether under Remand or Sentence, in the Gaol and House of Correction for Males at Hobart Town, on the 8th December 1874. Variations in the spelling of the prisoner's name, ship and date of arrival, can be accounted for because variations also occur in these documents (for example, the verso transcriptions of duplicates of prisoner Maldon/Malden held at the NLA). In the 1870s, the prisoner's Supreme Court photograph was reprinted again from Nevin's negative, or one of his duplicates printed at the first sitting, if the offender committed further crimes, often attached to warrants, and taken again on discharge. The prisoner's photograph was taken at least once, therefore, on three significant occasions:

(1) if for a Supreme Court conviction, after his transfer from a rural regional lock-up such as Oatlands, or Launceston, to the central city prison in Hobart and prior to transfer to Port Arthur if sent there AFTER trial and incarceration at the central Hobart Gaol;

(2) prior to discharge with a ticket-of-leave or other conditions, issued at the Hobart Town Hall Municipal Police Office.

(3) immediately prior to execution.

This was the practice in the colony of Victoria by 1873, and it was adopted in Tasmania in the same year. In NSW the requirement was for 25 duplicates to be printed from each negative; in Tasmania, Thomas Nevin produced at least four duplicates from his negative of a single sitting with the prisoner.

The Victorian Example
Charles Nettleton's photographs of Ned Kelly:
Below are the two photographs taken of Ned Kelly, attributed to Charles Nettleton,  which were pasted to his criminal record between 1873 and 1874. As the caption states, the photograph on the left was taken five months after Kelly was transferred to Pentridge in Melbourne from a country jail, dated to June 1873, and the second was taken a week before his release on 11th March, 1874. The photographs, attached to the prisoner's record, were forwarded to the police for future reference. This was their intended purpose. Note that the Victorian prison photographer Charles Nettleton printed his final copy as a carte-de-visite in an oval mount for the official record.

From the Public Records Office, Victoria:







This photograph, a mounted carte-de-visite of Kelly was taken prior to his execution:

Public Record Office of Victoria
Series VPRS 515/P0 Central Register of Male Prisoners
Description Edward (Ned) Kelly, age 25: detail from VPRS 515/P0 Central Register of Male Prisoners, prisoner no. 10926 Format photograph: 50 x 60 mm.




This unmounted photograph of Ned Kelly is held at the Public Record Office, Victoria, and is now nominated by the Australian Memory of the World Register:

PROV Register no. 19
Year of registration 2006
Name of the documentary heritage The Edward (Ned) Kelly and Related Papers as found in the Public Record Office Victoria
Location Public Record Office Victoria
Citation https://www.amw.org.au/citation/19
Full nomination Coming soon
Image caption Ned Kelly aged 15, after being tried in Benalla for horse theft. This copy of the photograph, taken for Kelly's prison record c. 1870, is attached to a brief description of Kelly that was prepared for a noted phrenologist in 1898.
PROV, VPRS 8369/P Correspondence, Photographs and History Sheets of Certain Male Criminals


Edward Kelly's Prison Records
VPRS 4966 Consignment P0 Unit 1 Item 1 Document: Police history, circa. 1873
Overview: Victorian prisons were quick to use the still-new technology of photography to create records of those who passed through their doors. The prison record featured here carries copies of two photographs of Ned Kelly, both probably taken by Charles Nettleton who worked on contract to Pentridge prison until the early 1880s. The first was taken in June 1873, five months after Kelly's transfer to Pentridge from Beechworth prison, and half-way through his sentence for receiving a stolen horse. The second photograph was taken a week before Kelly's release on 2 February 1874.
Documents like this were created by prisons to be forwarded to the police at the time of the prisoner's release. The police referred to these pages for the person's criminal history. This particular record was forwarded to the Penal and Gaols Branch of the Chief Secretary's Department on 11 March 1874.
In 1880 the record was forwarded to the Prosecution for Kelly's trial, with instructions that the photographs were to be returned to Chief Commissioner Nicolson.

The Tasmanian Example
Thomas J. Nevin at the Hobart Gaol:
Thomas Nevin's Supreme Court prisoner photographs are held at the National Library of Australia, State Library of NSW, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, and the Archives Office of Tasmania. A few duplicates are also held at the Port Arthur Historic Site.



Prisoner James GEARY, arraigned and photographed by T. J. NEVIN at Supreme Court Hobart 1-3 December 1874.



Prisoner George FISHER,  arraigned and photographed at the Supreme Court Hobart by T. J. NEVIN, 1-3 December 1874.



James Geary and George Fisher were both arraigned at the Supreme Court Hobart 1-3 December 1874.
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1874 (weekly police gazette)

See also these articles:

The NSW Authorisation
Darlinghurst Gaol:



Margaret Greenwood, 1875, photographed at the Darlinghurst Gaol NSW
NSW State Records Archives

This is the catalogue record source from the NSW State Records Office:

"NSW State Records Archives Investigator - Series Detail
Series number: 2138
Title: Photographic Description Books [Darlinghurst Gaol]
Start date: by 12 Aug 1871
End date: by 13 Jul 1914
Contents start date: 12 Aug 1871
Contents end date: 13 Jul 1914

Authorisation
The taking of prisoner ‘portraits’ was formally authorised to be carried out at Darlinghurst Gaol by a memo from Harold Maclean (Inspector of Prisons) to the Principal Gaoler on 5 August 1871 (1). This document noted:

Authority to introduce Photography
Portraits will be taken of all prisoners convicted at the Superior Courts, except those convicted of trifling misdemeanours and who do not belong to the Criminal Class.

Portraits will also be taken of prisoners summarily convicted where the Police require it, or the Principal Gaoler thinks it desirable to secure a perfect description.

These portraits will be photographed after conviction and fourteen (or more) days prior to discharge, in private clothing where practicable.

Any prisoner refusing or by his or her behaviour putting obstacles in the way of securing a proper likeness will be brought before the Visiting Justice for disobedience and the case reported to the Inspector of Prisons with a view to the stoppage of remission indulgences and gratuities. .

The figures are to be taken ¾ size unless in exceptional cases where there may be reason for taking them in full. The negatives will be numbered to correspond with the Photographic Register, and carefully packed away under lock and key.

Twenty five copies of each portrait are to be printed and furnished to the Inspector General of Police through this Office.

Harold Maclean
Inspector of Prisons
BC 5:8:71

The Principal Gaoler
A slightly earlier general order from the Acting Inspector of Prisons on 27 July 1871 (2) dealt with some of the practical aspects of implementing photography of prisoners:

Prisoners to be photographed
Prisoners convicted at the Superior Courts and being forwarded to serve their Sentences in Darlinghurst Gaol, or to Darlinghurst Gaol en route to Berrima or other prisons, will not be shaved and their private clothing will be sent with them in order that they might be photographed as nearly as practicable in their ordinary appearance.
Harold Maclean
Actg Inspr of Prisons
The Gaolers
Parramatta
Mudgee
Windsor

The photographing of prisoners appears to have been confined to Darlinghurst Gaol (the principal prison in the Colony) until the mid-1870s, after which it began to be introduced at the major country gaols. On 15 February 1877, a general order was sent to Berrima and Goulburn Gaols advising that when a prisoner who had been photographed was transferred to another gaol, a copy of his photograph, mounted on the usual form, was to be attached to his papers. (3)

Description
In addition to at least one photograph of each prisoner, this series contains the following information: number, prisoners’ name, aliases, date when portrait was taken, native place, year of birth, details of arrival in the colony – ship and year of arrival, trade or occupation, religion, degree of education, height, weight (on committal, on discharge), colour of hair, colour of eyes, marks or special features, number of previous portrait, where and when tried, offence, sentence, remarks, and details of previous convictions (where and when, offence and sentence).

There appears to have been one face-on photograph per individual until about June 1894 when there was both a face-on and a side-on photograph per individual.

Format
While the information recorded varied little over time, there was some variation in the format of the records, particularly in the first eight years (August 1871 to April/May 1879). For this period, the primary and more complete sequence of records was kept in a double-page format, with the descriptive information recorded (with photographs) on the left hand page, and criminal history/previous convictions on the right-hand side. The original intention appears to have been to have two photographs of each prisoner, on arrival and discharge. This seems to have been done only occasionally (mainly in the first few years of the system).

An incomplete sequence of records in a single-page format has also survived as part of this series, covering the period August 1871 to March 1875. This is particularly important, as it includes some records for periods where there are gaps in the surviving primary sequence of records (particularly for the period August 1871 to February 1872, and November 1872 to October 1873).

From April/May 1879 onwards, the single page format became the standard for these records.
For the period July 1904 to July 1914, there is a parallel set of records for Darlinghurst at NRS 1942 (this series also contains records for the other NSW gaols).

Custody History
[11/2205] was an archival estray received from Mr F. Rogers of the Hastings District Historical Society.
Endnotes
1. NRS 1824, 4/6478, p.496, no.71/2676.
2. NRS 1834, 5/1826, p.144, no.71/31.
3. NRS 2179, 5/1823, p.334.
Home location: These records are held at Western Sydney Records Centre"
[End of NSW State Records catalogue notes]

South Australia 1860s
Frazer Crawford's commission:
Frazer Crawford was commissioned by the Surveyor-General's Department to photograph prisoners incarcerated at the city Gaol and Yalta Stockade in 1867. He bought a 16 x 18-inch camera for the purpose. If Crawford's prisoner photographs have survived, they are not documented for public viewing.



Screenshot. Source: Art Gallery of South Australia

TRANSCRIPT
GOVERNMENT PHOTO-LITHOGRAPHER
In July and August 1866 Walter William Thwaites senior discussed the possibility of establishing a government photolithographic department with the Surveyor General, G.W. Goyder, hoping his son Hector James Thwaites could be employed as his assistant. Other photographers who applied for the position were Henry Anson and F.S. Crawford.
Frazer Crawford of the Adelaide Photographic Company was appointed to the position, and by December 1866 he was in Melbourne looking for the equipment needed to establish the new department, but could not find a large camera or supply of large glass plates. An order for a 16 x 18-inch camera and accessories was sent to London, and with his order for glass plates he instructed the supplier to pack them carefully, as some plates imported from England for the Adelaide Photographic Company had been spoiled ‘owing to the glass sweating on the voyage.’ Chemicals and processing equipment were ordered from Johnson & Co. of Melbourne.
On 7 December, while staying at the Globe Hotel in Swanston Street, Crawford wrote to John Noone, the newly appointed Victorian Government photo-lithographer, asking if he could ‘witness the practical details’ of Noone’s department and take ‘such notes of buildings, apparatus, &c.’ that he thought may be of use in a similar department in Adelaide. In his reply Noone said he had spent a lot of time learning the process and would not ‘impart such information unless your government is willing to remunerate me.’
When told that Crawford did not have the authority to promise remuneration Noone relented, informing Crawford that he would provide all the necessary information and leave it to the South Australian government to provide appropriate remuneration. Noone told Crawford that ‘many persons have asked me for the information I now offer to impart to you and expressed their willingness to pay for the same. Amongst others a Mr Deveril ... at Ballarat who informed me that he had made an application [for] the appointment you now hold, and who in the event of obtaining it would have been willing to pay me a considerable sum for my trouble in teaching him.’
By the end of December 1866 Crawford had been shown the process and had returned to Adelaide. He rented Freeman & Belcher’s former studio opposite the Town Hall in King William Street for a temporary photolithographic office, taking them for a period of four months from 16 February at £2 per week until a new office was built. A Mr (H.?) Perry was engaged as an assistant on a weekly salary of £3, to be paid from the labourer’s list.
One of Crawford’s first assignments was to photograph the prisoners at the stockade (Yatala) and at the Gaol. In a letter to the Surveyor General, dated 25 March 1867, Crawford wrote: ‘I have the honor to inform you that in obedience to your instructions I visited the stockade on the 21st and the gaol on the 22nd inst. and likewise consulted the Sheriff and Superintendent of Convicts as to the best method of carrying out the wishes of the Government in regard to taking photographs of the prisoners in these establishments. I found in the stockade 147 and in the gaol 110 prisoners – of these say 120 in the stockade and 70 in the gaol, in all 190, would be such characters as the Sheriff or Commissioner of Police might desire to have photographs of for police purposes. There would be no practical difficulty supposing I had suitable apparatus in taking separate likenesses of the prisoners in either the gaol or stockade, as long as the prisoners did not object to submit to the operation.
The best method to be adopted would be to take vignette portraits of them in the open air on the shady side of one of the courts, using a blanket for a background. Such portraits would be little inferior as works of art to those taken in the best lighted studios, and the work might be proceeded rapidly in fine, tolerably calm weather. A dark cell would do for a photographic dark room. As the convicts in the stockade are kept closely shaven and with their hair cut close, the likeness would not be so satisfactory as if taken in their ordinary style of [--]ing the hair, so that I would recommend that future convicts be taken at the gaol after conviction and prior to their being sent to the stockade. The convictions average about 20 each criminal sitting ... I do not think that more than 10 negatives on the average could be taken daily, so that it would take 12 days at the stockade and 7 days at the gaol to complete taking the negatives of the present prisoners.
As my assistant Mr Perry has been well accustomed to out of door photography he is quite competent to undertake these duties and I could spare him at present for a day or so occasionally without greatly interfering with the work of the photolithographic department. The negatives once taken, we could print copies from them at our leisure without interfering with our ordinary work. As the instruments used in portraiture are entirely different from those used in copying it would be necessary to purchase apparatus for the purpose such would cost between fifteen and twenty pounds. When once the prisoners in the stockade are taken such might be kept at the gaol to be used when required. The cost of printing each card picture would amount to about twopence – for chemicals, cards, &c.’ By the end of August 1867 Crawford had supplied 150 carte de visite portraits of prisoners to the Commissioner of Police.
When it was learnt that South Australia was to receive its first Royal Visit a Prince Alfred Reception Committee was formed. One of the committee’s recommendations to the Government was that a gentleman be engaged to ‘furnish a narrative of the Duke’s visit, and to be accompanied by a photographer to illustrate the events it is proposed to record.’ The committee recommended J.D. Woods as writer and suggested that Crawford, as government photographer, could take the photographs. After some discussion as to the availability of Crawford’s time and suitability of his instruments the committee was told to arrange for a private photographer. Townsend Duryea received the official appointment on 26 September 1867.
Similarly, in June 1868, when the South Australian Society of Arts asked if the Government photo-lithographer could use his large camera to copy an engraving for the Society the request was denied. The Surveyor-General noted that ‘all applications of this nature must be refused as its allowance might interfere with the business of private operators,’ even though it had been pointed out that the Government camera was the only instrument in the colony large enough to make the copy.
On 29 May 1869 a long letter from a correspondent, ‘Publico’, was published in the Register. In it Publico criticised the Government’s photo-lithographic department, calling it a white elephant and an expensive pet project of the Surveyor-General, G.W. Goyder. He claimed that the cost of the department was too high and that the work should be done by private photographers.
Crawford drafted a detailed reply to Publico’s claims and asked for permission to forward it to the Register for publication. His request was denied, and he was told by the Deputy Surveyor-General, ‘The letter which you wish to reply to, is only one out of many foolish and ignorant attacks and criticisms made by obscure persons on the Officers of this Department, and on their performance of their public duties. It is contrary to the regulations of the Service that Officers should write to the Public Papers on matters connected with their Department and in the present case while admitting the justice of your reply, I cannot sanction any departure from the established Rules.’
Frazer Crawford was over seventy years of age and still employed as Government Photolithographer when he died suddenly from heart disease at his Norwood home on 29 October 1890. His successor was his assistant, Alfred Vaughan. A Public Service Commission inquiry had earlier recommended that Vaughan be made head of the department and other work found for the aging Mr Crawford.
These examples give a clear picture of the purpose which prison photography served in the colonies of NSW, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania in the 1870s. They show a generically consistent approach which commercial photographers Frazer Crawford, Charles Nettleton and Thomas J. Nevin (snr) and those in NSW deployed in the 1870s at the request of their respective governments, specifically the use of mounted cartes-de-visite small enough to be pasted to the criminal record sheet, showing the subject posed in a half body shot with eyelines to left or right of frame. The later photographs, taken after 1880 show the influence of the Bertillon method of posing the prisoner in two separate shots: one full frontal, and one in full profile. However, while this practice was uniform by 1900, several registers held at the Archives Office Tasmania dating from the 1880s-1890s, show prisoner photographs were still being printed as cartes-de-visite in oval mounts, especially those issued on discharge from the Municipal Police Office, Hobart, where Thomas J. Nevin had set the precedent in the 1870s.

RELATED POSTS main weblog

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

National Library of Australia's convict portraits

The National Library of Australia has a long history of attribution to commercial and police photographer Thomas J. Nevin for their holdings of 84 Tasmanian "Convict portraits 1874". Information has been archived in these areas:

The Digital Collection displays 82 images (of 84) online;
The Pictorial Catalogue lists additional names and information; and
The Photographers' Files include accession details, correspondence, and worksheets.
The Picture Australia site has so far harvested 157 convict photographs from the NLA Collection and the Archives Office of Tasmania with Nevin's attribution.

PICTURE AUSTRALIA: digital harvest 8th February 2010 (NLA and AOT, 157 images)

Picture Australia 2010 digital harvest Tasmanian convicts 1874

Digital harvest from the National Library of Australia’s Picture Australia service of Thomas Nevin’s convict photographs held in public libraries: performed 8th February 2010. Webshots only.



NATIONAL LIBRARY of AUSTRALIA CATALOGUE: collections and documents



NLA CATALOGUE at April 2007
[Header] Nevin, Thomas J., 1842-ca. 1922.
Title: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874 [picture] / Thomas J. Nevin.
Date: 1874.
Extent: 78 photographs on carte-de-visite mounts : albumen, some col. ; 9.3 x 5.7 cm.
Summary: 78 identification photographs of 70 Port Arthur convicts taken at about the time the settlement was closed. All are annotated on reverse with the subject's name, the ship they were transported on, and 'Taken at Port Arthur 1874'. The photographs bear Thomas Nevin's studio stamp.
Notes: P1029/56 - 62, 64-67 from the Gunson Collection.
Twenty-two portraits were exhibited: "In a New Light: Australian Photography 1850s-1930s";


These webshots taken in May 2007 of the National Library of Australia's holdings for 78 photographs of Tasmanian prisoners taken by photographer Thomas J. Nevin between 1871-1886 show correct attribution from accession records dating from 1982. A further six photographs were digitized in 2009. The reproduction online of the 22 photographs digitized for the exhibition "In A New Light", 2000 are better in quality than the more recent digitization of the remaining 60 or so in the NLA's collection. This exhibition was the first of the NLA's misattribution of the photographs to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd, a result of pressure brought to bear on Pictorial staff by Warwick Reeder (MA thesis ANU 1995) among others who had used Chris Long's "belief" in Boyd as "new evidence" without checking any of his sources; if they had bothered, they would have discovered that he had cited statements which were never made by those whose work he cited, eg. Margaret Glover.

The NLA persists with this misattribution to A.H. Boyd under pressure from an individual called Julia Clark seeking personal advantage over any other PhD student, school student, researcher, or member of the public. The current NLA catalogue ADVERTISES her name with this entry on every convict portrait, overkill indicative of the lack of real evidence. The dead-end anomaly about A.H. Boyd was first noted on our weblogs in 2005. Clark has had five years to PROVE Boyd's attribution, which she hasn't. The wording here - "... considered more likely" is not evidence; it is evidence only of the lack of evidence. See this article on the PARASITIC ATTRIBUTION to A.H. Boyd and other articles dealing with attribution issues.

The catalogue states (as at May 2010):



[webshot]
Title
Charles Hayes, per Moffat, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture].
Description
No photographer name or studio stamp appears on these photographs. Formerly attributed to Thomas J. Nevin, the portraits are now considered more likely to have been taken by A.H. Boyd. See: Julia Clark. A question of attribution: Port Arthur's convict portraits in Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol 12, 2010, p77-97.; Part of collection: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874.; Title from inscription on verso.; Inscription: "75 ; Charles Hayes, per Moffat [?], taken at Port Arthur, 1874"--In ink on verso.; Condition: Some foxing.; Also available in an electronic version via the Internet at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn4506217.
Subject
Hayes, Charles -- Portraits.
Subject
Convicts -- Tasmania -- Port Arthur -- Portraits.
Publisher1874.
Image number
nla.pic-vn4506217
Contributor Boyd, A. H. (Aldolarius Humphrey), 1829-1891..
It is futile chasing Clark's anomalous vacuities to their inevitable dead-end regardless of the NLA cataloguist's personal opinions (and the petty politics which inform them). A.H. Boyd just happened to be the man in charge at the Port Arthur prison, sixty kms from Hobart, when some glass negatives supposedly arrived as cargo destined for government stores in 1873, although evidence suggests they did not arrive. It is simplistic in the extreme to assume that the men whose photographs survive were photographed with these same glass negatives, when thousands of glass negatives and thousands of prisoner photographs were in existence in Tasmania by 1874. There is no factual connection between photography and A.H. Boyd who had no reputation in his lifetime as a photographer, no works by him are extant, and no documents exist that associate him with the Tasmanian Government's 19th century police photographic activities dating from Nevin's engagement in 1871 and the introduction of the related legislation in 1873. Boyd played no role in the creation of these police mugshots which the NLA insists on calling "Convict Portraits, Port Arthur 1874". The assumption that these men were photographed at the Port Arthur prison is fundamentally incorrect. They were photographed at the Hobart Gaol after their criminal trial in the adjoining Supreme Court. These men were recidivists and repeat offenders whose extensive criminal careers in the open prison of the island of Tasmania earned them a further sentence and a mugshot by Thomas Nevin working with police on a daily basis at the Hobart Gaol and Municipal Police Office located at the Town Hall.

The NLA acquired some of their collection from Dr Neil Gunson as archival estrays in the 1960s from the Sheriff's Office, Hobart Gaol and Benevolent Society (Dan Sprod papers NLA MS 2320 1.5.64 Missionary history), but most of their current holdings of Tasmanian prisoner photographs in Nevin's name were acquired ca. 1982 in an album from the QVMAG exhibition 1977, although the album was not accessioned until 1995, by which time the provenance was supposedly forgotten. The curator of the QVMAG exhibition (1977) of Nevin's prisoner photographs indicated that this album was sent first to the National Gallery of Victoria, and then forwarded to the NLA a year or so before 1984 (interview at NGA 1984). This album was still intact in 2001: the cartes were still positioned in mounts on album leaves, witnessed by a Nevin descendant.

Many of these convict cartes held at the NLA are Nevin's original duplicates of the same images held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and the Archives Office of Tasmania. Several were copied by John Watt Beattie in the early 1900s and deposited at the TMAG. This simple fact underscores the extensive dispersal which has taken place since the mid 20th century, principally from the QVMAG collection (numbers on recto and verso): 1958, 1977, 1982, 1985, 1987 and most recently for a digital database. Although the Nevin brothers photographed more than a thousand prisoners over two decades, the bulk has been lost, destroyed or sold at private auction. The remaining 300 or so were selected or salvaged by Beattie ca. 1916 to display to tourists; he selected only those prisoners whose sentences were severe enough to warrant a criminal sitting in the Supreme Court: the offender's apparent notoriety was the selling point. In this respect, they are not a random selection, nor a series. But they were not salvaged because they were an archive held at Port Arthur; they were never held at Port Arthur, nor taken there. Nevin photographed the prisoner once as a single capture in Hobart, produced multiple prints as cartes-de-visite on oval mounts from his original glass negatives at his city studio and later at studios in the Hobart Gaol and Municipal Police Office, and made at least four duplicates from his glass negative for circulation to other prisons and police in regional Tasmania, in addition to the copies needed to paste onto warrants, prisoner records sheets, and the central register held at the Hobart Town Hall.

Whether or not Nevin's stamp or handwriting appears on the verso of these cartes held at the NLA is not important unless you want to believe the indefensible Boyd furphy. Police photography has rarely been accredited, not even when a 19th century professional and commercial photographer was involved, as in Thomas Nevin's case in Tasmania and Charles Nettleton's in Victoria. The documentation of Nevin's career is now extensive, and his photographic work, including prisoner photographs held in all other public and private collections, some of which bear his government contractor's studio stamp with the colonial warrant Royal Arms insignia (QVMAG, SLNSW), clearly attest to his employment both as a commercial photographer and civil servant under contract to the Hobart Municipal Police Office and Prisons Department for most of his working life (1864 - 1886). Nevin's colonial Royal Arms warrant studio stamp, identical to the seal of the Hobart Supreme Court, was used to register joint copyright with the Customs and Patents Office and the Hobart City Corporation (one trade sample per batch of 100), to access his commission, and renew his contracts (1868 -1876). Once he became a full-time civil servant with the HCC in 1876, the stamp was unnecessary. His brother Constable John Nevin was his assistant at the Hobart Gaol for the later years of Nevin's service to the Municipal Police Office (1876-1886).

The NLA's accession records reveal how vague the NLA has been with regard to the provenance of their collection, and the meagre attention paid to accuracy, let alone veracity. First they asserted their these photographs of Tasmanian prisoners carried Thomas J. Nevin's stamp on the versos, now they say no photographer's stamp appears on the versos, as if police photographs are to be measured by the same standards as commercial art photography. Such expectations measure only the degree of ignorance of the staff in matters of attribution.

In addition to the digitised 82 convict portraits by Thomas J. Nevin there are three more photographs in the NLA collection taken by T. J. Nevin of prisoners William Lee, William Meaghers and Charles Rosetta in the 1870s. All three are reproductions of Nevin's originals by Beattie and Searle, 1916, and have not been attributed to Nevin, although they should be, because these prisoners were well and truly dead by 1916..

The NLA has performed a batch edit on all 82 portraits currently online, with the misleading head entry "Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874." Not all items bear the copyist's and/or archivist's inscription on verso, "Taken at Port Arthur, 1874." The inscription probably dates to ca. 1916 when these images were copied and offered for sale to tourists by John Watt Beattie in his convictaria museum, located in Hobart; he also contributed these to the travelling exhibitions in the early 1900s on the fake convict ship Success at Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart.



Recto and verso with carte insert, NLA collection of Tasmanian prisoner photographs by T. J. Nevin.

This portrait (below) of convict Edington is an example of the NLA's poor reproduction (recto) of the 50 recently digitised since May 2007, and of incorrect information re place and date of capture. The inscription on verso merely states that John Edington was a "native" - i.e. a local, and that his two-year sentence was for robbery:



NLA Catalogue
nla.pic-vn4269866
John Edington, native, robbery 2 years, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture] 1874.
1 photograph on carte-de-visite mount : albumen ; 9.4 x 5.6 cm. on mount 10.5 x 6.3 cm.




PHOTOGRAPHERS FILES


Webshot of Thomas Nevin's ephemera file containing accession sheets, work sheets, correspondence, and newspaper articles, included in the Photographers Files, held at the National Library of Australia.

PICTORIAL LISTS
Catalogue entry (2003)
Nevin, Thomas J., 1842 – ca.1922  [sic-1923]
Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874

Lists for Pictorial Collections



http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/21336/20031011-0000/www.nla.gov.au/pict/list/nevin.html



Accession Nos.: P1029/1-55 AN11590418
* Indicates portraits also held in Archives Office of Tasmania

Accession number: convict's name:
P1029/1 William Adams
P1029/2 William Baker*
P1029/3 George Brown
P1029/4 James Calhaun
P1029/5 James Conlaw
P1029/6 Charles Dawnes* [sic -Downes]
P1029/7 Dennis Dogherty
P1029/8 John Doran
P1029/9 John Edington
P1029/10 George Fisher
P1029/11 John Fitzpatrick
P1029/12 James Foley*
P1029/13 William Forster*
P1029/14 Thomas Francis
P1029/15 John Funt
P1029/16 James Gearey [sic - Geary]
P1029/17a Michael Gilmore
P1029/17b Michael Gilmore
P1029/18 Michael Gilmore
P1029/19 Francis Gregson
P1029/20a John Gregson
P1029/20b John Gregson
P1029/21 Thomas Griffin
P1029/22 George Grawsett (missing) [sic Growsett]
P1029/23 James Harper
P1029/24 William Harrison*
P1029/25 William Hall
P1029/26a Walter Johnson
P1029/26b Walter Johnson
P1029/27a James Jones
P1029/27b James Jones
P1029/28 John Jones
P1029/29 Peter Killern [sic - Killeen]
P1029/30 Thomas Kelly*
P1029/31 Duncan McDonald
P1029/32 Luke Marshall
P1029/33 John Merchant*
P1029/34a Thomas Molineaux
P1029/34b Thomas Molineaux
P1029/35 John Moran
P1029/36 John F. Morris
P1029/37 William Mumford
P1029/38a John Murphy
P1029/38b John Murphy
P1029/39 Henry Page*
P1029/40 William Price
P1029/41 Thomas Reilly
P1029/42 Henry Singleton*
P1029/43 Sutherland
P1029/44 John Toomey
P1029/45 William Walker*
P1029/46 Charles Ward
P1029/47 John White
P1029/48 Henry Williams
P1029/49 John Williams (missing card and original pic)
P1029/50 George Wilson
P1029/51 John Appleby
P1029/52 Ephraim Booth
P1029/53 William Cambell [sic - Campbell aka Job Smith]
P1029/54 William Woodley
P1029/55 James Wynn

Gunson collection accession nos: P1029/ 56-62
Accession Nos: Convict’s Name:
P1029/56 Thomas Cahill
P1029/57 Samuel Evans (No neg)
P1029/58 John Finlay [or Finelly(sic)]
P1029/59 George Johnson
P1029/60 John Morrison
P1029/61 James Thomas
P1029/62 William Yeomans
P1029/63 Johns Williams

See detailed records of these prisoners here Prisoner Pictures.

NLA CATALOGUE 2005.























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On board the "City of Hobart" 31st January 1872