Thomas J. Nevin | Tasmanian Photographer

1854: a year on shore at Hobart Tasmania for Captain Edward Goldsmith

CAPTAIN EDWARD GOLDSMITH master mariner and merchant
HOBART, TASMANIA (Van Diemen's Land) 1854

[Hobart Town from the Domain]
Author/Creator: Bull, Knud Geelmuyden, 1811-1889
Publication Information: [ca. 1854]
Physical description: 1 painting : oil on paper laid on canvas ; 34 x 51 cm.
Digitised item from: Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office

The year 1854 was significant in the life of Captain Edward Goldsmith (1804-1869) because he spent it ashore at his antipodean residence, 19 Davey Street, Hobart, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) with his immediate family: his wife Elizabeth Goldsmith nee Day and his two sons Richard Sydney Goldsmith and Edward Goldsmith jnr, unlike the two preceding decades from 1830 to 1852 when he was at sea for eight months of every year as commander of merchant vessels plying the wool trade routes from London via the Americas, the Falklands and South Africa to Port Jackson (Sydney) NSW and Hobart, VDL. The following year, however, Captain Goldsmith put to auction the household contents of his residence at 19 Davey St Hobart (on August 8th and 9th, 1855), plus the contents of his store and yard, and by February 1856 he had departed Tasmania with his wife Elizabeth and son Edward jnr, having lost his eldest son Richard to typhoid in 1854. He retired to his estate, Gad's Hill House in the village of Higham, Kent as a neighbour of Charles Dickens, never to return to the Antipodes, although it would take another decade before he brought his business interests in the colonies to a close.

In brief, the year 1854 ashore at Hobart saw Captain Goldsmith's participation in these events, and probably several more not noted in the press:

Licensed as wholesale liquor merchant
Attendance at banquet to celebrate the opening of the New Market
Death of eldest son Richard Sydney Goldsmith from fever
Committee member for Royal Society dinner to honour Sir William Denison
Committee member for farewell dinner for John Dunn
Construction and sale of a schooner, 25 tons, at his Domain slipyard
Construction of the twin steamer ferry SS Kangaroo at his Domain slipyard
Director of the Hobart Town & Launceston Marine insurance company
Shareholder in the Tasmanian Steamship Navigation company
Planned defence battery next to Goldsmith's Yard on the Domain
Committee member on the Gold Exploration Committee
Construction of the patent slip at the Domain and personal illness
Regatta Judge 9 December 1854
Petitioner to the HCC for sewage and water pipes to be laid in Davey St.

The year 1854 saw Captain Edward Goldsmith, his wife Elizabeth Goldsmith nee Day, and his two two sons almost continually resident in Hobart. He had not undertaken his annual return voyages from London to Sydney and Hobart since handing over the very fine wool trader the Rattler, built for him by London merchant Robert Brooks to Captain Wardell, his neighbour in Davey St. Hobart, in 1853. When not at home at 19 Davey Street (the street numbers have since changed - 19 Davey St. in the 1850s was opposite St David's Park whereas now it is the address of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery way down the hill, opposite Constitution Dock) or at his shipyard on the Queen's Domain, he was travelling around the island visiting his many friends who had greatly benefited from his success in exporting their whale oil, their wool and gold, year in, year out, from the early 1830s and whose lives were made more comfortably "English" through his importation of luxury goods, exotic flora, merino sheep and horse bloodstock lines, some even at his own expense. There would have been short trips across Bass Strait to Ballarat, Victoria to visit his sister Mary Tolhurst nee Goldsmith, her husband Jeremiah Tolhurst, and the surviving children of a total of fifteen born to Mary Tolhurst nee Goldsmith.

JANUARY 1854
Two events of note took place in January:

Captain Goldsmith was granted a license as a wholesale dealer in wines and spirits for the year ending 31st January;
Captain Goldsmith attended the banquet and opening of new commercial premises at the New Market (later known as the Hobart City Hall, not to be confused with the Hobart Town Hall in Macquarie St.).

Licensed wholesale dealer of wines and spirits
On 1st April 1853, Captain Edward Goldsmith registered a mortgage with brewery owner John Leslie Stewart (and others) on several premises along lower Davey St, including 19 Davey St, the house next door, and Stewart's brewery. In late January 1854, he received a license to sell wines and spirits from the Davey St. premises and from his stores at the Old Wharf.

Captain Edward Goldsmith, licensed wholesaler in wines and liquors
Source: The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Tue 24 Jan 1854 Page 2 General Intelligence.

TRANSCRIPT

LICENCES. - The following merchants and traders have received licences as wholesale dealers in wines and spirituous liquors for the period ending 31st December, 1854, viz. :-Richard Helen McKenzie, Launceston, Henry Berkely Nichols, Longford, Edward Goldsmith, Hobart Town, James Peters, Launceston, Flexander Graham, Swansea, Charles Toby and James Park, Hobart Town, Louis Phillips, ditto

Opening of the New Market
The construction of the New Market on the Hobart Wharves, and the banquet held to celebrate its opening in January 1854, was another of Captain Goldsmith's interests and an event he attended in the company of Hobart's most illustrious officers and the colony's most modest traders alike.

Captain Goldsmith at the New Market banquet
Source: Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857) Tue 24 Jan 1854 Page 2 NEW MARKET BANQUET.

TRANSCRIPT

... At the centre table, and immediately near the upper table, we observed the honorable members for Oatlands, Brighton, and Campbell Town, together with Captain Langdon, Mr. Bisdee, Mr. Hone, Lieut.-Col. Jackson, D. C. G. Bishop ; Aldermen Elliston, Bonney, Worley, and Thomson. The Revs. Dr. Lillie, Buckland. Messrs. W. Robertson, Roope, Harris, Roberts, J.C.Walker, Capt. Goldsmith, Dr. Huxtable. Mr. Frederick Lipscombe as representative of the Market interest occupied the Vice-chair, assisted by Mr. Coote, in consequence of Mr. Lipscombe laboring under a severe cold. The band of Her Majesty's 99th regiment struck up " God save the Queen," when the Governor entered the hall ; and, during dinner and throughout the evening performed a variety of favourite pieces in their usual excellent style.
Grace having been said by the Archdeacon, the company proceeded to test ,the quality of the viands (provided by Webb) ... Read more in this extended post here.

State Library of NSW
Samuel Clifford, photographer
19. The New Market, Hobart Town
Digital Order Number: c025370019
Stereographs of Tasmania, Sydney and Scone, N.S.W., collected by George Wigram Allen, 1852-1870
Date of Work 1852-1870
Call Number PXB 199

FEBRUARY 1854
Three events of note kept Captain Goldsmith busy in February:

Outlays for repair of boats reclaimed from Treasury
Auction of a 25 tons schooner, a launch and pine spars at Captain Goldsmith's shipyard, plus auction of barley etc from his stores at the Old Wharf
Meeting of the directors of the Hobart Town and Launceston Marine Insurance Company

Audit Office
Between 20th and 28th January, Captain Goldsmith submitted claims for reimbursement of expenses to the Colonial Treasury's Audit Office: "E. Goldsmith, repairing boats etc"

Captain Goldsmith's claim for reimbursement of expenses to the Audit Office
Source: Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857) Sat 4 Feb 1854 Page 3 Local Intelligence.

TRANSCRIPT

AUDIT OFFICE. - Accounts for contingent expenses sent to the Colonial Treasury for payment between the 20th and 28th January: - ...E. Goldsmith, repairing boats etc; ...

The Paddock, at the shoreline of the Queen's Domain below the Royal Botanical Gardens, was the location of Captain Goldsmith's patent slip and ship yard by 1854. He built several vessels there, including the twin vehicle ferry SS Kangaroo and commenced driving piles there for the construction of a patent slip.

Title Patent slip, Hobarton, Tasmania [picture]
Call Number PIC Drawer 3161 #T600 NK1206
Created/Published [ca. 1850]
Extent 1 watercolour ; 25.2 x 35.1 cm.
National Library of Australia Canberra

Read more about Captain Edward Goldsmith's patent slipyards -

Sale of colonial schooner, launch and pine spars
Auctioneer Mr. W. A. Guesdon had a busy day conducting auctions on Thursday, 23rd February 1854. At 1.00am he auctioned 200,00 feet of timber and a quantity of American flour, presumably on board the Drover at the wharves; at 11.30am at Mr Butler's Bazaar in Collins St. he auctioned six milk cows; and at 12.30pm he was at Captain Goldsmith's shipyard auctioning the newly-built 25 tons colonial schooner, the seven tons launch and a small quantity of pine spars. After lunch, at 2.30pm he was auctioning Cape barley where the Emma was moored at Constitution Dock.

Auction of 25 tons schooner etc at Captain Goldsmith's shipyard
Source: Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857) Tue 21 Feb 1854 Page 1

TRANSCRIPT

New Schooner of Twenty-five Tons.
Launch of Seven Tons, and Baltic Pine Spars.
MR. W. A. GUESDON
In instructed to Sell by Public Auction, at the Yards of Captain Goldsmith, Government Domain, on Thursday, the 23rd February, at 12 for half-past 12 o'clock,
A MOST faithfully built Colonial Schooner of twenty-five Tons, with all her standing and running rigging, masts, sails, iron pumps, &c. &c.
The above vessel has been built under the inspection of Captain Goldsmith, on the most faithful manner, has large carrying capacity,and is in all respects a first-class colonial craft.
ALSO
A seven ton launch
AND
A quantity of small pine spars.
Terms at sale. 541

Who bought the schooner? Perhaps Douglas Kilburn, photographer, yachting enthusiast and also a neighbour of Captain Goldsmith's in lower Davey St. Hobart, bought it and named it Zephyr, which he entered in the Regatta, December 1854, with Askin Morrison, master.

Advertisement on right: A day in the life of auctioneer W. A. Guesdon
Source: Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857) Thu 23 Feb 1854 Page 3 Local Intelligence.
Photograph on left: auctioneer and later MP, William A. Guesdon
TAHO Ref: https://stors.tas.gov.au/AUTAS001136192226

TRANSCRIPT

At half-past 12, at Captain Goldsmith's Yards - New schooner, 25 tons, launch, and pine spars. And at half-past 2 o'clock - Cape barley, alongside the Emma, Constitution Dock. Also, tomorrow, at his stores, Old Wharf, - merchandise, full particulars of which will be found in our advertising columns.

Meeting with Insurance Company Directors
Captain Goldsmith was one of five directors of the Hobart Town and Launceston Marine Insurance Company, established in 1836. He was also a shareholder of The Tasmanian Fire and Life Insurance Company, and a trustee and creditor of Reeves & Co. shipbrokers etc, which was liquidated in 1862.

TRANSCRIPT

Hobart Town and Launceston Marine Insurance Company.
Captial - £63, 800
ESTABLISHED 1836
Office, Stone Buildings, Hobart.
Directors
ASKIN MORRISON
EDWARD GOLDSMITH
HENRY HOPKINS
JOHN WALKER
JOHN FOSTER etc etc

Source: Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857) Sat 25 Feb 1854 Page 4

MARCH 1854
This month saw Captain Goldsmith involved in the sale of property next door in Davey St. and a night out at John Dunn's farewell dinner.

Sale of premises next door to 19 Davey St. Hobart
Imports of alcohol
Farewell dinner to Mr John Dunn

Sale of premises next door in Davey St
The cottage and premises which sat between Stewart's Brewery and Captain Goldsmith's house at 19 Davey were advertised and sold to Mr Lee of Victoria in 1854.

Sale of cottage and premises next door to Captain Goldsmith's house, Davey st.
Source: The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Sat 18 Mar 1854 Page 3 Classified Advertising

TRANSCRIPT

FRIDAY, 24th MARCH
Cottage and Extensive Premises, Davey-street, opposite St. David's Burial Ground.
BY MR. T. Y. LOWES
On FRIDAY, the 24th March, at 12 o'clock,
On the premises
With positive instructions to be sold without any reserve
THE COTTAGE RESIDENCE
and Extensive Premises with a frontage of 85½ links on Davey-street and about 200 in depth, between Mr. Stewart's brewery and Captain Goldsmith's residence.
Good property being as attractive as " Good Wine" that "Needs no Bush."
Terms liberal, which will appear in next adverisement. 1268

See these posts for more detail:

Imports per the "Anne Brisdon"
Captain Goldsmith imported 16 hogheads per the Anne Brisdon from London. Hogsheads were large casks with a capacity for wine, equal to 52.5 imperial gallons or 63 US gallons (238.7 litres) or a capacity for beer, equal to 54 imperial gallons or 64 US gallons (245.5 litres).

Source: The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Tue 28 Mar 1854 Page 2 SHIPPING NEWS.

Farewell Dinner to Mr. John Dunn
The various speeches given at this dinner all made reference to the end of convict transportation to the colony of Van Diemen's Land a year earlier; to the need for land grants as enticement to immigrants; and to the question of labourers acquiring agricultural land. In his own speech, John Dunn made reference to his support for the Dock Bill which would have had an impact on Captain Goldsmith's shipwright and patent slip construction. The comments regarding a "little foreign gentleman" which raised laughter were possibly directed at Monsieur Camille Del Sarte, a recently arrived musician from Paris. John Dunn (1790–1861), elected member of the City Council, was returning temporarily to England by reason of his wife's ill health. He died in Hobart. Read more of his biography online at the ADB:

Source: The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Mon 20 Mar 1854 Page 2 FAREWELL DINNER TO MR. DUNN.

TRANSCRIPT

FAREWELL DINNER TO MR. DUNN.
One hundred and four gentlemen, who, if all electors, would form the proportion of about 8 per cent, of those who profess to be Mr. Dunn's solo constituents, or not one-twentieth of the whole body of city electors, attended a dinner given to him on Friday evening last, at the Legislative Council Chamber, previous to his departure for England by the Antipodes. The dinner was conducted in excellent style, and the whole company appeared to enjoy the delicacies provided, and the abundance of champagne and other wines by which they were accompanied, with the utmost zest. At each end of the room and at the entrance were placed inscriptions in honour of Mr. Dunn; while a large banner, bearing the Tasmanian Arms, floated over the Chair, which was occupied by Alexander Orr, Esq.
The chamber-band of the 99th was in attendance, and accompanied the several toasts with appropriate airs. The health of Mr. John Dunn was followed by a piece of music, composed, at two-hours' notice, expressly for the occasion by Mr. Martin, the band-master. The new service of place, used for the first time at the dinner given to Mr, Hathaway, was also placed in requisition; and nothing in short was omitted that could contribute to the success of the proceedings and the satisfaction of all parties, officially or otherwise, connected with them. Among the guests of the evening, R Dry, Esq., Speaker of the Legislative Council, had been invited, but in consequence of indisposition was compelled to decline. Among the gentlemen present were Colonel Last, Drs. Bedford, Hadley, Brock, Crooke, and Rev. Dr. Fry ; the Attorney and Solicitor-General, Mr. Justice Horne, Robert Power, Esq., His Worship the Mayor, C. B. Brewer, Esq., R. Lewis, Esq., Rev. Mr. Buckland, Edward Macdowell, Esq., Captain Goldsmith, Messrs. Worley, Reeves, Guesdon, Meikle, Harbottle, Champion, Hamilton, Basstian, &e.
During the evening a letter was read by the Chairman from Colonel Despard, also an invited guest, in which that gentleman expressed his regret at being prevented by illness attending the occasion.
After the customary loyal toasts had been given and duly honoured, the Chairman gave "Our guest, John Dunn, Jun. Esq.," and observed that he did so with mingled feelings of pain mid pleasure; of pain, on account of the domestic affliction which compelled his absence; of pleasure, because those who supported him in his election, and who represented the wealth, influence, and respectability of the colony were there. assembled to do him honour. He felt but too happy to notice that scarcely a single individual had expressed disapprobation at Mr. Dunn's leaving for a short time. In order to ensure his return as soon as possible, he had taken his passage by the overland route; but should any unforeseen cause of delay occur, he ( Mr. Orr) felt assured that the kind feeling shown would induce him to rejoin them as soon as possible. He had observed that about 800 persons had signed an address to Mr. McNaughtan, expressing the opinion that if Mr. Dunn should retire, Mr. McNaughtan was a fit person to represent the city. He (Mr. Orr) had been made the subject of some remarks in one of the colonial papers, which remarks he could afford to pass over with supreme contempt. There was in the community a little foreign gentleman, who exercised a greater degree of liberty than the inhabitants themselves; if it were not for that little firebrand, all would be united into a happy family. (Great laughter.) In his own country he had observed, no doubt, a small combustible called an " allumette ;" and although himself a very small spark, if he could only get any one to blow the bellows, he would blow them all up. (Continued laughter.) He did not believe there was one man in Hobart Town who really would desire Mr. Dunn's retirement; but even if Mr. Dunn were to resign, he (Mr. Orr) was quite convinced that his re-election would be certain. After making some further allusions to Mr. Dunn's public and private character, and many hopes for his safe passage to England and the restoration to health of Mrs.Dunn, the toast was given and responded to with great and general acclamation,' an additional cheer' being elicited by the sentiment, " A happy"and a quick return."
Mr. Dunn, when some degree of silence was obtained, acknowledged the compliment with much apparent emotion. On the eve of departure, he had had to transact business with more than 300 people. The manner in which his health had been proposed and received was highly gratifying ; and equally so was it to meet so many of his constituents, and to receive such proofs of their approbation. For more than two years he had had the honour of being their representative, and had ever endeavoured, concientiously and honestly, to do his duty. When he entered the Council, he did so free, unfettered, and untrammelled, excepting only on the question of transportation. In redeeming his pledge on that question, he did not deem it his duty to infuse it with every other question that might emanate from the Government. In supporting the Dock Bill, he did so in behalf of the public at large, and therefore he supported it at the best of his ability ; and he believed that many who formerly opposed that measure were now fully convinced that it ought to have been carried; the principal merchants, the majority of the shipowners, the most influential inhabitants, in short, of Hobart Town, were in favour of it, and it was rejected as being some way connected with the transportation question! Respecting the vote of want of confidence in Sir Wm. Denison, while he deprecated his conduct on the subject of transportation, he could not " go the whole hog" in abusing him.... etc etc

One piece of land held by John Dunn was the area in New Town later known as the Old Race Course and including Sunderland St, Derwent Park Rd, Main Rd and Main Line railway.

Title: Map - Buckingham 33 - plan of an estate belonging to John Dunn, New Town, New Town Rvt, Hobart to Launceston road, race course
ADRI: AF396-1-36
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania
Series: County Maps, 1810 - 1959 (AF396)

Map - Buckingham 145 - plan of New Town race course and various landholders
ADRI:AF396-1-154
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania
Series: County Maps, 1810 - 1959 (AF396)

Title: Map - Buckingham 99 - parish of New Town, plan of property for sale at New Town later known as the Old Race Course and including Sunderland St, Derwent Park Rd, Main Rd and Main Line railway landholders LORD J AND BUTLER F, BENJAFIELD H
ADRI: AF396-1-106
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania
Series: County Maps, 1810 - 1959 (AF396)

MAY 1854
These events occupied Captain Goldsmith's time in May:

Meeting to establish defences battery next to Captain Goldsmith's shipyard
Imports of alcohol as a licensed wholesale dealer in spirits etc
Imports of timber &

Source: The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Tue 9 May 1854 Page 2 COUNCIL PAPERS.

TRANSCRIPT

SIR,- In compliance with the desire conveyed in His Excellency's Minute of 8th instant, for me to report upon the Defences of the Harbours of Hobart Town and Launceston, as also to furnish Plans and Estimates for the necessary works, I have the honour to report that to command the whole anchorage of the Harbour of Hobart Town would entail works of magnitude involving the establishments of enclosed Works and Batteries for guns of large calibre at the undermentioned points: - Sandy Bay (on land immediately adjoining Mr. Perry's property); Mulgrave Battery and Flag-staff Hill; Paddocks adjoining Government House, Macquarie Point, and in the Government Domain, on some commanding position in the vicinity of Captain Goldsmith's yard, on the right bank of the river; and Kangaroo Point and Kangaroo Bluff on the left bank....

Imports of alcohol etc

Source: The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Tue 30 May 1854 Page 2 SHIPPING NEWS.
"8 csks, 47 cas, Captain Goldsmith"

Imports of 360 deal timber etc

Source: The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Mon 22 May 1854 Page 2 SHIPPING NEWS.
"50 cas, 360 deals, 41 pkgs, E. Goldsmith"

JUNE 1854
Captain Goldsmith's routines in June were divided between his wholesale licensed business importing and exporting wines and liquors, and finalising the launch of the Twin Ferry SS Kangaroo from Goldsmith's Yard, at the Queen's Domain in Hobart.

Imports per the Duke of Roxburgh
Exports of wine to Victoria
Launch of the Twin Ferry SS Kangaroo

Imports per the "Duke of Roxburgh"
"6 casks, 47 cases, Captain Goldsmith"

The Tasmanian Colonist (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1851 - 1855) Thursday 1 June 1854 p 3
Imports per the Duke of Roxburgh: 6 casks, 47 cases, Captain Goldsmith

Export of wine to Victoria
"Per Macquarie. for Port Albert: 1 quarter cask wine, E. Goldsmith"

Source: Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857) Thu 22 Jun 1854 Page 2 Shipping Intelligence.

Launch of the Twin Ferry "SS Kangaroo"
Without doubt, the major factor in Captain Goldsmith's decision to leave Tasmania permanently was considerable monies owing to him by the Government for the construction of the twin ferry, the Kangaroo and the reneging of agreements concerning the site location and lease, the supply of timber and driving of piles for the patent slip on the Domain. From late December through to February 1856, the colonial newspapers in Hobart, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane made it known that the contractor, Captain Goldsmith, was paid in small amounts totalling less than £1000 in cash, plus £256 in timber, while his own outlay exceeded £6000 "without any charge for his own time, interest of money, use of yard etc". The real costs to him personally, he claimed, were higher than £9400. The Colonial Secretary offered just £5000 to Captain Goldsmith and no more. The initial unrealistic estimate of £4000 by Sir William Denison, which paid a deposit on the machinery, the engineer's dues and little else, was further compounded by inadequate supplies of timber from Port Arthur and Cascade due to scarcity of prison labor, a matter put to a Select Committee inquiry into corruption within the Convict Department. In total, the whole cost of this little ferry amounted to more than £17,629 (Sydney Morning Herald, 6 January, 1856). Captain Goldsmith left Tasmania grossly out of pocket and undoubtedly soured by memories of functionaries who had taken advantage of his generosity and good will.

Debts owing to Captain Goldsmith
Colonial Times, 21 December 1855

TRANSCRIPT

And indeed in the statement of the cost of the twin ferry boat "Kangaroo", we find that the contractor has only received timber to the value of £256.10s.2d, and cash to the amount of £1000. The reply is that the Government will not object to submit the matter to arbitration, Mr. Goldsmith replied that he finds his outlay exceeds £6000, without any charge for his own time, interest of money, use of yard &c., and suggests the Government shall give him £5000 at once, when he will leave to arbitration the amount to which he is entitled beyond that sum. To this the Colonial Secretary demurs, but offers the sum of £5000 in full of all demands, and there the correspondence concludes. After reading the whole of it, we are very painfully impressed with the consciousness that the whole of our functionaries, from the highest to the lowest, have proved themselves grossly incompetent to the conduct of such a trifling affair as the building of a ferry-boat.

SS Kangaroo, ca. 1900 W. J. Little, Photo
TAHO Archives Tasmania
Refs: PH3015623

This ferry carrying horses and carriages was most likely the Kangaroo ca. 1900
University of Tasmania Special Collections.

In an article published in the Mercury 23rd June 1882, the writer described the plant for a patent slip imported and built with prison labour in the early 1850s by Captain Goldsmith: the intention was to build a reliable means of transport for passengers and horse-drawn vehicles between Hobart and Kangaroo Point (Bellerive).

Credit to Captain Goldsmith
To Captain Goldsmith, who came to the colonies in charge of one of the London traders, the credit of introducing patent slips into Hobart is due ...

The Kangaroo and Captain Goldsmith were mentioned again in this excerpt from the Shipping News, Launceston Examiner, 21 January 1881:

The Kangaroo built by Captain Goldsmith 1854
Launceston Examiner 21 January 1881

TRANSCRIPT

The twin steamer Kangaroo was built in the year 1854, under the immediate supervision of the late Governor Sir William Denison, R. E., by the late Captain Goldsmith, formerly of the London traders Waverley and John Izat, at the Imperial expenditure, regardless of cost. Her timbers, which (says the Mercury) are still as sound as ever, were the pick of the forests of Tasman's Peninsula, and her machinery was the best of the day. She was designed for the purpose she still serves, as a huge floating bridge between Hobart and Kangaroo Point, and was built on that portion of the Queen's Domain known as McGregor's patent slip. During the progress of her building a long lease of the site was granted to Captain Goldsmith by Sir William Denison, on condition that he laid down what was then much needed - a patent slip. The conditions of the lease were, however, unfulfilled by him, but the hon. Alexander McGregor purchased Captain Goldsmith's interest in the lease, and forthwith carried out its conditions by laying down the slip, now carried on by his brother, Mr. John McGregor, on the Queen's Domain.

More about (the late) Captain Goldsmith and the Kangaroo appeared in this article titled SHIPBUILDING IN TASMANIA, published in the Mercury 23 June 1882. Read the article here.

The Famous Twins or SS Kangaroo ca. 1900, built by Captain Edward Goldsmith 1855, for the Hobart-Bellerive service
Source: Pictorial Portrayal of Tasmania’s Past, Beatties Studios, Winnings Newsagency 2011.
Photo copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2014

JULY 1854
Captain Edward Goldsmith's generosity in mounting appeals for public subscriptions to help women and their families to return to England when their husbands were terminally incapacitated or deceased was widely appreciated. In 1842 he raised a public subscription for charitable donations to aid Captain John Biscoe and family to return with him on board the Janet Izzat. There were probably many more instances of offers of a subsided passage on board his return voyages to London.

Appeal for Mrs Baily
In June and July 1854, in conjunction with the offertory funds of St Davids' and Trinity Churches, Captain Goldsmith launched an appeal to aid Mrs Baily and her six children to return to England. According to this record, her husband J. A. Baily had departed Hobart on 16th October 1852, never to be heard from again.

Archives Office Tasmania
Name: Baily, J A
Record Type: Departures
Rank: Cabin
Departure date: 16 Oct 1852
Departure port: Hobart
Ship: Dart
Bound to: Geelong
Record ID: NAME_INDEXES:519302
Resource: CUS36/1/141

So, in June and July, 1854, this appeal to assist Mrs Baily and her six children return to England appeared in the Hobart Courier. It concerned the disappearance of her husband, Mr J. A. Baily "for sixteen years a Clerk in the Probation Department" (i.e. in VDL/Tasmania) who had departed Hobart on board the Dart for Geelong in October 1852, bound for the Californian goldfields. The notice stated that it was almost certain he had perished with "a party of Mexicans whom he joined in a mining expedition".

Captain Goldsmith's appeal for Mrs Baily
Source: Hobart Courier 14th July 1854

It was at Captain Edward Goldsmith's suggestion that a public subscription be raised to aid Mrs Baily and family. He had donated £5 to the subscription fund and organised the passage for them on board the barque Cornhill. If they did depart on the Cornhill, which cleared out on 7th July 1854, they must have been the eight persons sailing in steerage, as only cabin passengers were named in this notice of 7th July):

Source: Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857) Fri 7 Jul 1854 Page 2 Shipping Intelligence.

AUGUST 1854 death of son Richard
Tragedy struck the family of Captain Edward Goldsmith in August 1854. When elder son Richard Sydney Goldsmith fell gravely ill with fever in August, he was attended by Dr Edward Samuel Pickard Bedford (1809-1876) at St Mary's Hospital, erected in 1847.Edward Bedford was the medical officer for the City in 1852, on whose committee Captain Goldsmith served when Bedford campaigned for election in February 1855. But on 15 August 1854, at his father's house, Richard Sydney Goldsmith died, aged just 24 yrs old. He was born to Elizabeth Goldsmith only days after her arrival at the Swan River, Fremantle, Western Australia in May 1830, on board the ill-fated brig the James alongside her very young husband Captain Edward Goldsmith on his first command following their marriage in 1829. They were stranded at Swan River when the James was wrecked by storms. They proceeded to Hobart aboard the Bombay and thence to Sydney where Captain Goldsmith took command of the Norval bound for London. While in Sydney, they christened new-born Richard Sydney Goldsmith at St. Philips on 11th November 1830. Once back in London, they registered his birth and baptism again at St. Mary Rotherhithe where later, in 1847, Captain James Day, brother of Elizabeth Goldsmith and navigator on Captain Goldsmith's early voyages would register the birth and baptism of their eldest daughter Elizabeth Rachel Day born to Rachel Day nee Pocock. Elizabeth Rachel Day, Richard Goldsmith jnr's first cousin, would later become the wife of photographer Thomas J. Nevin (Hobart 1871). At the time of his death, Richard Sydney Goldsmith was a cashier of the Union Bank of Van Diemen's Land, located in Macquarie Street, Hobart.

Richard Sydney Goldsmith christening record (1830-1854)
Source: NSW Registry of BDM

Death of Richard Sidney Goldsmith
Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 - 1899) Thu 17 Aug 1854 Page 2 Family Notices

Goldsmith, Richard Sidney
Record Type: Deaths
Gender: Male
Age:24
Date of death:15 Aug 1854
Registered:Hobart
Registration year:1854
Record ID:NAME_INDEXES:1192493
Resource:RGD35/1/4 no 1429

Richard Sidney Goldsmith's death was registered on 15th August 1854 by Captain James Duff Mackay, and not by Richard's parents Captain and Elizabeth Goldsmith, which may suggest they were not ashore in Hobart in mid August 1854. Captain James Duff Mackay's residence was directly opposite the Anglesea Barracks gate in Davey Street where he was the Barrack Master and paymaster for the 50th Regiment of Foot until departure for London where died on 24th January, 1879, aged 96 years old. His extraordinary longevity he may have credited in no small part to Mr. Weaver's Antibilious Pills which he endorsed in advertisements for chemists Weaver & Co.

"I have no hesitation in pronouncing them the best and SAFEST MEDICINES in the world"

Advertisement for antibilious pills endorsed by Captain James Duff Mackay,
Source: The Mercury 12 November 1877

Obituary for James Duff Mackay 29 March 1879
Source: The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954) Sat 29 Mar 1879 Page 2 DEATH OF CAPTAIN DUFF MACKAY.

A subscription in aid of Jews in Jerusalem was published in the Courier on 25th August 1854. Richard Goldsmith had contributed £1.1.0 (one pound one shilling).

The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Fri 25 Aug 1854 Page 3 SUBSCRIPTIONS. IN AID OF THE JEWS IN JERUSALEM And other parts of the Holy Land.

In the north arcade of the Nave of St Mary the Virgin Church, Chalk Kent UK, is a black and white marble plaque in memory of Captain Edward Goldsmith and family. Included on the plaque but not on the gravestone outside in the church graveyard is Richard Sydney Goldsmith (1830-1854), first child of Elizabeth Goldsmith who was born days after their arrival on the James (Captain Goldsmith in command) at Western Australia in 1830 and died of fever in 1854 at Hobart Tasmania where he was buried at St. David's Cemetery opposite Captain Goldsmith's house at 19 Davey St.Hobart.

Memorial plaque for Captain Edward Goldsmith and family
Nave of St Mary the Virgin Church, Chalk Kent UK
Photos copyright © Carole Turner March 2016

IN MEMORY OF

EDWARD GOLDSMITH

OF THIS PARISH AND GAD'S HILL, HIGHAM

WHO DIED JULY 2nd 1869 AGED 65 YEARS

ALSO ELIZABETH WIFE OF THE ABOVE

WHO DIED JANUARY 18th 1875 AGED 73 YEARS

ALSO RICHARD SYDNEY BELOVED SON OF THE ABOVE

WHO DIED IN TASMANIA AUGUST 15th 1854 AGED 24 YEARS

ALSO EDWARD YOUNGER SON

WHO DIED AT ROCHESTER MAY 8th 1883 AGED 46 YEARS

SEPTEMBER 1854
Although not in optimal health, Captain Goldsmith continued to serve on committees and may have visited family members in Victoria.

News of the Rattler
Return from Melbourne
Committee member for Sir W. T. Denison's Royal Society dinner

The Rattler
News of the barque Rattler caught in dangerous weather off Valparaiso (Chile) amidst skirmishes between English men-of-war and Russian vessels in June reached Captain Goldsmith in September. The Rattler was built and commissioned for him by London Docks shipowner Robert Brooks for the London-Australian colonies wool trade. Captain and Elizabeth Goldsmith sailed the Rattler on the barque's maiden voyage from London to Hobart in 1846 and returned annually until 1852 when Captain Wardell, one of the Goldsmiths' neighbours in Davey St. took command but died after returning to London on the Rattler in May 1854. By June 1854 Captain Milne was in command of the Rattler when this report was released:

The Rattler, Shipping News Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859), Friday 1 September 1854, page 2

TRANSCRIPT

Captain D. Milne, of the barque Rattler, reports that on the 13th of June, at Rio, a Swedish ship arrived at that port from Valparaiso, and reported a severe action having taken place outside of Valparaiso with the Russian frigates Aurora and Diana, and two English vessels, names not mentioned. The Russians were said to have been defeated after a well-contested action, and one of them, dismasted, was towed into Valparaiso. The report he considers should be received " with caution." The English men-of-war Rifleman, Madagascar, and Sharp-shooter, the Russian schooner Requida, and the American frigate Savannah, are also stated to have been there. Admiral Henderson had gone home in -the Severn mail packet, and on the 12 lb the French frigate Alceste had sailed for the west coast of America. The Rattler spoke, on the 22nd April, the ship Peruna, in lat. 38'20 N., long. 15-16W., bound to Valparaiso, and on the 2nd May signalled the Windermere from Port Phillip to London. On the 3rd July, the barque Severn, from Gloucester to Geelong, was spoken in lat. 35*32 S., long. 7*50 W. The Rattler had met with such severe weather as to be compelled to cast a portion of her cargo overboard.

Arrival ex Melbourne per the "Emma Prescott"
Although not clearly documented, it is more than likely Captain Goldsmith crossed Bass Strait on several occasions as a passenger to oversee his mercantile interests in Melbourne and to visit his two nephews Edward and Richard Tolhurst (sons of his sister Mary Tolhurst nee Goldsmith) in Ballarat where they had established profitable gold and mineral mining ventures. Both would later be named as beneficiaries to Captain Goldsmith's estate on his death in 1869. This notice and may or may not be a record of one of those voyages:

The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Mon 25 Sep 1854 Page 2 [?]

24th - Emma Prescott, brig, 160, Harburgh, Melbourne. Cabin - Messrs. Sheehy, Goldsmith or Goldsmid?, and Miss Marks; 7 steerage, 9 Government emigrants.

On right: arrival of the Emma Prescott 23 Sept 1854
Source: Archives Office Tasmania
Ref: MB2-39-1-18 Image 159

Captain Edward Goldsmith's father, Richard Goldsmith (1769-1839) expressed in both his Will of 1836 and the Codicil in 1839 his concern for his daughter Mary Tolhurst nee Goldsmith, younger sister of Edward, who had given birth to fifteen children, six of whom were still living by 1856. He used the strongest wording as a warning that her husband Jeremiah Tolhurst should have no control of what monies her father Richard might leave her:

... to my daughter Mary Tolhurst for her own use and that of her children I desire that my request be complied with that Mr Jeremiah Tolhurst may have no control over one shilling of her money left by me to her [Will 1836]... I am desirous that the property bequeathed to my daughter Mary in my will dated August 28th 1836 shall be entirely for the benefit of herself and her children and I therefore appoint my Executors named in the Will above mentioned Trustees to the said property that they may see my intention fulfilled [Codicil 1839].

His concern extended to a daughter of that marriage, his granddaughter Caroline Tolhurst. Richard Goldsmith was unequivocal in wishing to trust the future of his daughter Mary Tolhurst and her daughter Caroline to his sons John Goldsmith in London and Captain Edward Goldsmith, and to their older sister Deborah Meopham Goldsmith to see that "Jeremiah Tolhurst may have no control over one shilling of her money left by me to her".

Royal Society Dinner for Sir W. T. Denison
The Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land admitted Captain Edward Goldsmith as a member in 1851. As a Committee member, he was called on to contribute to the preparations of a Royal Society dinner in honour of their departing president,Sir William T. Denison which was to be held in late December 1854. He seconded a motion by his good friend Captain Langdon to call Mr Leake to chair the meeting reported on 27th September 1854. Both men had an interest in the development of the Falkland Islands. The suggestion that the Falklands become a penal colony similar to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) was put forward to the Colonial Office by Captain William Langdon R.N. as early as 1830, a suggestion which Captain Goldsmith fully endorsed in his letter to The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, NSW Saturday 27 July 1839 (p 2 Article ADVANCE AUSTRALIA). For merchant traders such as Captain Edward Goldsmith, the Falkland islands were of primary importance as a naval depot and resort for merchantmen needing supplies.

The dinner preparations for departing president Sr W. T. Denison
The Hobarton Mercury (Tas. : 1854 - 1857) Wed 27 Sep 1854 Page 3 Classified Advertising

OCTOBER 1854
By October, Captain Goldsmith's health was suffering. Within a few weeks he would experience two severe attacks, possibly because of the stress of losing his eldest son Richard coupled with the delays involved in completing the construction of his patent slip at his yard on the Queen's Domain.

Imports from London
Meeting of the Tasmanian Steamship Navigation Co

Imports per "Derwent"

Imports per Derwent from London for Captain Goldsmith
Source: Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 - 1857) Tue 10 Oct 1854 Page 2 IMPORTS.

Per Derwent from London --- ; 2 cases. Tasmanian Public Library; ...;1 case Captain Goldsmith ; .5 cases, J. Walch & Sons, 120 packages, G. and J. Salier ; etc etc ....

Tasmanian Steamship Navigation Co.

The Tasmania, S. Prout Hill 1854
Courtesy of the Archives Office of Tasmania
[The Tasmanian steam navigation company boat "Tasmania" running for Hobart] / S. Prout Hill.
Author: Hill, Samuel Prout, 1821-1861, artist.
Production: [Tasmania?] : S. Prout Hill, 1854.
Physical description: 1 painting : graphite and watercolour on coloured paper ; 52 x 69 cm (work) ; 69.5 x 85.5 cm (frame).
Signed on lower left recto: 'S. Prout Hill, 1854'.
Framed in Huon pine wood frame with glass and slip.
Summary: The image depicts the steamship "Tasmania", one of two vessels operating between Hobart and Melbourne, from the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company, founded in 1853. The steamship is exiting Port Philip Bay, Victoria, outracing an old sailing ship, with full steam blast, flying pennant flags of the company.

Captain John CLINCH (1808-1875) was a contemporary of Captain Edward Goldsmith, both sharing common ground at Rotherhithe, Surrey, where John Clinch was born in 1808, and Edward Goldsmith, born in 1804, trained as a merchant mariner at East India House before taking command of Robert Brook's privately-owned vessels on the Australian wool trade route. Both mariners shared a concern to assist in the development of the colony of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) through expansion of intercolonial shipping. Captain Edward Goldsmith regularly attended shareholder meetings of the TSN Co. during 1853-1854 in Hobart which Captain John Clinch joined in 1854, taking command of their iron Tasmania on direct voyages to Sydney. He also commanded the TSN's City of Hobart, and Southern Cross.

Thomas J. Nevin photographed Captain John Clinch on board the TSN's City of Hobart on a day trip to Adventure Bay, Bruny Island, south of Hobart, on 31st January, 1872. Captain John Clinch, whom Nevin positioned at the centre of the image, is flanked on his right (viewers' left), by former Premier of Victoria Sir John O'Shanassy (seated), and standing next to him by townsman John Woodcock Graves jnr; and on his left (viewers' right), by Hobart Mayor Hon. Alfred Kennerley and the Hon. James Erskine Calder, former Surveyor-General (seated). Standing behind Captain Clinch and Alfred Kennerley is barrister R. Byron Miller.

Verso with rare Nevin label of The Colonists' Trip to Adventure Bay
VIPs on board The City of Hobart, 31st January 1872
Stereograph in buff arched mount by Thomas J. Nevin
Private Collection KLW NFC Group copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2015

TSN Co. shareholders' meeting 1854

Shareholder William A. Guesdon
TAHO Ref: https://stors.tas.gov.au/AUTAS001136192226

Source: The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List (NSW : 1844 - 1860) Mon 23 Oct 1854 Page 204 NEWCASTLE.

TRANSCRIPT

TASMANIAN STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.
Colonial Times, October 10.
Pursuant to advertisement a special general meeting of the share holders of the above company was held yesterday, at the Royal Exchange, Macquarie-place, at twelve o'clock, for the purpose of giving authority to the directors to employ the vessels of the company in the conveyance of goods and passengers to such ports in the Australian colonies as the shareholders might deem fit. There was a full meeting, notwithstanding several of the prominent shareholders had left town to attend the steeple chase at Campbell Town. Among the gentlemen present — we noticed Captain Bentley, Messrs. Macnaughton, Cleburne, M.L.C., Ross, Hedburg, Guesdon, Facey, Captain Goldsmith, Laing, Toby, Watkins, Reeves, Graham, Captain Fisher, Alderman O'Reilly, Champion, Corry, Fitzgerald, Rout, Lipscombe, &c. Mr. Macnaughton (by unanimous desire) took the chair, and stated the object of the meeting. The directors had found that they had not, under the Act, power to send the steamer to Launceston -with government emigrants, the second clause only applying to tbe line between Hobart Town and Melbourne, and such other places as might be agreed on by a majority of the share holders present at a special meeting. The directors had taken the responsibly on themselves of sending the iron Tasmania to Launceston last week, and thence to Melbourne, relying on obtaining the sanction of the proprietary. The directors now came to them for such sanction, and also asked them to give power to act in future for the interest of the company, as circumstances might require. The government might wish to forward troops to Sydney, or elsewhere, as they had done on a previous occasion, and without such a power, the directors might lose the opportunity of profitably employing the vessels. He then read the minute of the meeting of directors of the 30th September, deciding to call the present meeting.
Mr. Guesdon inquired if it was contemplated to send one of the vessels into any other trade, which was answered by the Chairman in the negative.
The immediate object of the meeting was Then discussed, and Mr. Corry proposed the following resolution, which, being seconded by Mr. Graham, was passed unanimously : —
'Resolved that, the directors, in the opinion of this meeting, exercised a sound discretion in sending the Tasmania to Launceston,and that the meeting do authorise the directors, at their discretion, to send the vessels of the company to all or any of tbe following ports, (that is to say), Launceston, Geelong, Sydney, Adelaide, Port Albert, New Zealand, Twofold Bay, and Swan River.'
Mr. J. G, Reeves called attention to what he considered a defect in the deed of co-partnership, there being no power to sell any one of the vessels except on winding up. A discussion ensued, and several clauses were referred to but nothing decisive could be found.
Mr. Guesdon renewed the subject of altering the line, and intimated his opinion that this company should attempt the Sydney line. He therefore proposed that the directors be requested to take the matter into consideration.
The Chairman referred to the opinion be at first entertained ... etc etc

Source: The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List (NSW : 1844 - 1860) Mon 23 Oct 1854 Page 204 NEWCASTLE.

Dinnerware (egg cup?) of the TSN Co.
Allport Museum and Library, Hobart

Captain Goldsmith, Captain Bentley and Captain Clinch were all three residents in Davey Street, Hobart, listed in the Hobart Gazette of 1855, p. 471. Two photographers also resided in Davey St. - William Paul Dowling, an Irish chartist, who moved his portrait studio from Macquarie St Hobart, located opposite the Hutchins School, to Number 24 Davey Street, "nearly opposite the Hampden-road" on the Harrington street side of photographer Douglas Kilburn's house at Number 22 Davey St. A little further down in the direction of Murray St and opposite St David's Cemetery was Stewart's Brewery, separated by a small house from Captain Edward Goldsmith's house at Number 19 Davey St.

Hobart Town Gazette 27 March 1855
Page 470-471: Davey St residents (far right column)
Click on for large view

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS of DAVEY STREET.

Source: THE COURIER. (1854, November 9). The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859), p. 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2242479

TRANSCRIPT

THE COURIER
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 9.
TASMANIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PARIS EXPOSITION.
D. T. Kilburn, Esq., of Davey-street, exhibits five calotype views of different localities in Hobart Town. (1.) A view of Macquarie-street, from above Mr. Crisp's residence, looking down towards the Domain, and including within range St. Joseph's (R. C.) Church, the Cathedral of St. David's. &c. (2.) The New Market Place, Hobart Town. (3.) St. David's Cathedral. (4.) View of Macquarie-street, including the Bank of Australasia, Macquarie Hotel, &o. &c. (5.) View of the houses in Davey-street, opposite St. David's Cemetery.

Douglas Kilburn's views of the houses in Davey St. opposite the Cemetery were either retained and sold at the Paris Exposition of 1855, or misattributed to another photographer, if copies are extant, since they seem not to have surfaced in Australian public collections.

Source: The Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 - 1859) Fri 6 Oct 1854 Page 1 Classified Advertising

TRANSCRIPT

REMOVAL
MR. W. P. DOWLING
Portrait Painter,
Begs to inform his Friends and Pupils that he has removed his Studio to No. 24, Davey-street, nearly opposite the Hampden-road.

Davey Street Hobart, 1870s: on the left where three men are standing, is St. Mary's Hospital; on the right, Captain Goldsmith's two-storey house - bearing the Collegiate School name by the 1870s - facing St. David's Cemetery (Burial Ground). Image courtesy ePrints, University of Tasmania

Read more here:

NOVEMBER 1854
Captain Goldsmith applied for the lease of land from the colonial government at the Queen's Domain to construct a patent slip on several occasions between January 1851 and October 1853. Sir John Franklin's nephew, William Porden Kay, was the Director of Public Works in 1855 when he wrote the Report on Captain Goldsmith's Patent Slip. The Report covers the years 1849 to 1855, from the first date of Captain Goldsmith's proposal of a patent slip, to Captain Goldsmith's receipt of timber in November 1854 on condition work started on the slip within six months. The report details the frustrations, delays, obstacles, objections and unreasonable conditions placed on Captain Goldsmith prior to his sale of his interest to the McGregor brothers. It also mentions that Captain Goldsmith experienced further afflictions within the family, including two attacks of illness.

Pages 1-11 of the Report 1855 on Captain Goldsmith's patent slip by Wm Porden KAY:

TRANSCRIPT Pages 1-11

Patent Slip
In 1849 Capt Goldsmith proposed the importation of a patent slip, and requested that a piece of ground might be allotted to him on which to place it. Sir Wm Denison in reply expressed himself so fully committed of the advantage that could accrue to the Colony by the erection of a patent slip for repairing vessels trading to the port, as to be willing to do every thing in his power to further so desirable an object, and suggested a site at the back of the Commissariat Treasury, to which Capt Goldsmith agreed.
The terms on which this was to be granted were, 1st the ground to be leased to Capt Goldsmith for 66 or 99 years at a nominal unit of 1/- per annum; 2nd that the patent slip should be erected thereon of sufficient dimensions for vessels between 600 and 700 tons; 3rd the Governor furthermore offered to fill in the ground to the required height, provide and drive the necessary piles and grant the loan of a diving Bell on Capt Goldsmith's undertaking that all vessels belonging to the British Navy, to the Local Government or the Convict Dept., should be allowed the use of the Slip, at one half the charge to other vessels of equal tonnage.
In February 1849 Capt Goldsmith expressed his acquiescence in these terms and, in December 1849 reported the arrival of the Slip,and again acquiesced on the conditions above mentioned, requesting that the Land fixed upon might be at once leased to him.
In January 1850 the Director of Public Works furnished a list of the piles required, with a statement of what their cost would be to the Government, including driving them and the filling in required, as previously agreed to be done by the Government, amounting to £1016.19.0. and in the same month a plan for the piling was arranged between the Director of Public Works and Capt Goldsmith, and submitted to the Lieut. Governor.
This having been approved, Capt Goldsmith was informed /in Feby 1850/ that the Government would at once commence driving the piles, but would not be bound to do so within a specified time.
The Director of Public Works was shortly afterwards /in May 1850/ directed to remove a portion of the Commissariat Wharf to make room for the Slip, and the Deputy Commissiary General was apprised that such had been done.
Between this period and January 1851, some negotiation took place as to a change of site considered necessary by the objections made by the Commissariat to their wharf being interfered with and by the works which His Excellency at that time contemplated for the formation of a dock behind the Commissariat. Capt Goldsmith was consequently compelled to seek elsewhere for a suitable site, and in January 1851 submitted a plan of one in the Domain which the Lieut Govenor agreed should be given up for the purpose, and ordered to be marked out, authorising Capt Goldsmith to occupy it until a Lease could be prepared.
On this being reported performed [sic ?] by the Director of Public Works, in February 1851, Capt Goldsmith stated his readiness at once to commence the work and submitted a tender which he had received for driving the piles, and as the Government, on a former occasion had agreed to perform this work for him, he requested that timber to the amount of the tender £325 might be given to him in lieu of such assistance. This proposition His Excellency would not at first entertain on the grounds that the stipulated assistance could be given to Capt Goldsmith at a much cheaper rate by the Government driving the piles themselves.
It however appeared on further consideration that the quantity of timber required by Capt Goldsmith would cost the Government only about £120, and they would be relieved from all responsibility as to the stability of work work executed by them. It was therefore on the 26. March 1851, agreed that the piles and timber, about 5000 cubic feet, should be given to Capt Goldsmith, as an equivalent for the non performance of every condition promised by the Government except the loan of the Diving Bell.
About this time also Capt Goldsmith again applied for a lease of the ground and in June 1851 submitted a draft lease of the allotment in question, which was referred for the opinion of the Director of Public Works and the Law Officers of the Crown. From the latter it appeared that various legal difficulties stood in the way of the execution of the lease, and here the subject appears to have dropped until October 1852, when Capt Goldsmith again applied for his lease, on which it was determined to nominate by Act of Council, some person as the Lessor of Crown Lands, who would then be in a position to grant the Lease in question.
This decision was communicated to Capt Goldsmith in November 1852, informing him that in the mean time, he would be undisturbed in his possession as heretofore.
In October 1853 intimation was given to Capt Goldsmith that the Officers above named had been appointed and that the Lease could be at once executed, and on the 20 January 1854, the Crown Solicitor forwarded a counterpart of a lease which had been executed, and on which Capt Goldsmith was bound to complete the work by a certain period.
On the 9th November Capt Goldsmith applied for 12 months' extension of this time on the following grounds. 1st that had His Excellency's intention to drive the piles for the Slip at the back of the Commissariat without delay as stated in the Col Scys letter of February 1850 been carried out, Capt Goldsmith's part of the agreement could have been then at once commenced and completed before the discovery of gold in the adjacent Colonies had caused the enormous rise in the price of wages and materials which then took place.
2ndly the unavoidable delay which took place in the supply of the timber stipulated to be contributed by the Govt. 3rdly the failure of the parties with whom Capt Goldsmith had entered into the Contract for driving the piles, to complete such Contract, on the ground of the delay in supplying the timber and the consequent measured rate of wages. And lastly the long period of uncertainty as to the lease of the site which to a certain extent prevented his entering into an other contract. Two very severe attacks of illness and family afflictions further contributed to retard Capt Goldsmith's operation, and under the circumstances, his request was acceded to, on the Condition that the work should be commenced within six months of that date by Nov. 14th 1854.
The stipulated quantity of timber has now been supplied to Capt Goldsmith and his receipt for the same filed in the Office of Public Works

State Library of NSW
Title: Report on Captain Goldsmith's patent slip by the Director of Public Works, 1855
Creator: Kay, William Porden
Date of Work: 1855
TRANSCRIPTS and Photos Copyright © KLW NFC 2014 Arr

Captain Butler Stoney's account
On February 21, 1856 Captain Edward Goldsmith boarded one of the Black Ball Line clippers, the Indian Queen, in Hobart as a passenger, accompanied by his wife Elizabeth and son Edward Goldsmith jnr, bound for Liverpool, England, on his final voyage from the colony re-named Tasmania (formerly Van Diemen's Land) just months prior, in July 1855. Also on board was passenger Captain H. Butler Stoney of the 99th Regiment, author of A residence in Tasmania: with a descriptive tour through the island, from Macquarie Harbour to Circular Head (London, Smith, Elder & co., Sept. 1856). When he published his book on Tasmania in 1856, he mentioned Captain Goldsmith's difficulties with the Hobart Legislature in construction costs etc of the patent slip and Twin Steam ferry Kangaroo (pp 26-27). The passage below hints at the very real obstacles Captain Goldsmith experienced with the colonial government, which no doubt formed his decision to finally leave for good:

Above: Capt Butler Stoney on Captain Goldsmith, pp.26-27
A residence in Tasmania ... etc 1856

TRANSCRIPT

Joining the Cricket Ground, on the bank of the Derwent, is a piece of land leased to Mr. Goldsmith by the Colonial Government, for the erection of a patent Slip, which was brought to the Colony by him in the year 1848, but was not erected until 1856, in consequence of delay in getting a proper lease of the ground. It is now erected, and capable of taking up sailing vessels or steamers of 1,000 tons at high water, and one of 500 to 600 at low water, with every capability of repairing any description of vessel. The Slip is worked by steam power.
In 1848 the Twin Ferry Boat was laid down by Mr. Goldsmith, of 480 tons, capable of taking four loaded drays on her deck, besides her passengers ...
The Twin Ferry Boat was completed about twelve months since, but not delivered to the Government until January last; the reason of this the Government is fully aware of...

The LONG con: our comments on Julia Clark's fraudulent thesis

Julia Clark posing at the school for Riding for the Disabled Association of Tasmania, 500 Kalang Ave, Glenorchy, with her stalking horse which she used to ingratiate herself into the confidence of the unsuspecting young Nevin family member who was a volunteer at the RDA Kalang. Source of image; RDA Kalang.

In 2015 this individual Julia Clark (b. 1949) submitted a thesis to the University of Tasmania in the hope of being awarded a PhD degree. The award, in our opinion, should be revoked. The many instances prior to this thesis where she has claimed - by means fraudulent, predatory, deceitful and abusive - that A. H. Boyd photographed prisoners in Tasmania in 1874 when no evidence has ever existed, nor ever will - is examined in great deal across these weblogs about the life and work of professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin. Without these Nevin weblogs, Julia Clark would have no thesis.

The first third of Clark's thesis was copied from the hundreds of books and articles on the subject of 19th century photography of prisoners; the middle third was an excuse to plagiarise the original research on these weblogs about Thomas J. Nevin's photographs of Tasmanian prisoners taken in the 1870s while abusing his descendants by name; and the last third of the thesis was copied from publications by Susan Hood at the Port Arthur Historic Site and her collaborator Hamish Maxwell Stewart at the University of Tasmania, the latter most obligingly supervising Clark's "thesis" with all its fantasies, sledging and fabrications. Her other supervisor, Stefan Petrow, whom she so warmly acknowledges as co-editor, was born in Hobart, according to the Tasmanian Historical Research Association's website, viz.

Stefan Petrow was born in Hobart. Stefan is an Associate Professor in the School of History and Classics at the University of Tasmania and has been a member of THRA since 1990. He has served two three-year terms as President.

Why the THRA should see the need to announce Petrow's birthplace when those of other committee members are not announced is a sign among so many of casual racism/xenophobia in Tasmanian culture, but thank you THRA, it is so re-assuring to learn that Stefan Petrow was not born in some Nazi-infested Eastern European hell-hole, and that he must have learnt English from a very early age. So how come this sentence in Julia Clark's thesis passed his approval (p. 151)?

A descendant of Nevin’s, Dr Kerry Williams, has assiduously promoted the claims of Thomas Nevin, whom she believes to be her ancestor ...

This sentence is an example of Clark's poor control of the English language. Can a descendant of an ancestor not be their ancestor's descendant, is that semantically possible? No, it is not. It is a semantic contradiction, approved by her proof reader Stefan Petrow. Belief doesn't come into it. It's Clark with her toxic emotions way out of control, so desperate is she to disparage and derogate the life and work of photographer Thomas J. Nevin. Kerry, for anyone who wants to know, is genetically blessed with the good looks, good fortune and intelligence of all her ancestors, and especially her maternal great grandparents, great grandfather Thomas J. Nevin, great grandmother Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day and their respective ancestors, including Thomas' father, poet John Nevin snr, and Elizabeth's uncle, master mariner Captain Edward Goldsmith. Julia Clark is an idiot to imagine such a statement has any validity in any context, yet she appears so fond of it - the word "assiduously" especially - that she has repeated it time and again in print. She is an idiot, period (see Addenda below). Socially and intellectually pretentious Julia Clark, with her arrogant disregard for her own accountability, her narcissistic opinions, and her phony loyalty to her cohort - who has never produced anything beyond the mediocre -is threatened by researchers, especially descendants who respect protocols and generously provide primary documents, all at their own expense. No primary documents appear in Julia Clark's blather across her whole A. H. Boyd scam. Stefan Petrow's "eagle-eyed" editing, to quote Clark (page 4), might have missed this nasty little sentence in Clark's thesis (p.151), or indeed he may well have condoned it, given the malice and hostility Clark has mustered towards Nevin in the pursuit of this worthless PhD degree. Since the THRA committee is most keen to inform us that Petrow was born in Tasmania, he would be acutely aware of how distressing misinformation about one’s ancestry can be, yet apparently not when it comes to the one historical figure who is central to his own and his History Department's research on 19th police in Tasmania, viz. commercial and police photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923).

THE THESIS as retrieved in February 2017 from the University of Tasmania:

'Through a Glass, Darkly’: the Camera, the Convict Life and the Criminal'
by Julia Christabel Clark B.A. (Hons.)
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)
University of Tasmania
November 2015

Our Comments and Annotations
How to access the text to which these comments refer: just open this document here which is the thesis (or from the embedded document below) as it was retrieved from the University of Tasmania in February 2017 and annotated at that time with the comments below. Each yellow bubble and highlight inserted on the page listed below by number contains at least one of these comments as an annotation to the text. The comments therefore need to be read concurrently with the thesis.

Please note: our comments here are brief. We have no intention of providing a free editorial service with lengthy responses to each silly claim which Clark makes, and we do not dignify Clark's thesis within our definition of reasonable debate. For extended discussion on this web site on any comment we have tagged ">>", use our search engine accessed here.

TITLE PAGE:
When Julia Clark attended the PhD ceremony in August 2016 to accept the award, she was introduced with this statement, which she had crafted herself:

"Deputy Chancellor, I present to you Julia Clark. Dr. Clark identified the probable photographer of Port Arthur's last convicts as camp commandant A. H. Boyd..."

Here is reason enough why graduands should not be encouraged to craft their own synopses. The sheer idiocy of the premise - that Clark has "identified" the camp commandant at Port Arthur A. H. Boyd as the probable photographer of ... convicts" - is not born out by this wretched little thesis. A. H. Boyd is the theme, the core, as Clark blindly sees it, despite 200 pages of extraneous padding. The word "probable" is as laughably inaccurate regarding the bully A. H. Boyd as the thesis is disturbingly vituperative and malicious towards the living descendants of the only REAL photographer of Tasmanian prisoners in the 1870s, T. J. Nevin. The award should have been withheld, and this thesis should not be available online via the University of Tasmania library. Clark has extended her resentment of Nevin to harassing his living descendants and encouraging others to post online abusive misinformation of Nevin ancestry. This and the thesis constitute misconduct of the first order.

Image caption, title page:
>> Why is the QVMAG catalogue number missing from here and on the other four images in this thesis? "PROBABLY" is neither a curatorial term nor a publisher's - "attributed to .." is the usual wording. The few photo reproductions in this thesis are of exceptionally poor quality, and the choice of this image in no way proves the Boyd attribution.

>> Footnote, title page:
Irrelevant and unexplained religious reference, supposedly signifying Clark as a believing Christian, a good person who would never lie or cheat or abuse or defraud.....

PAGE 2 COPYRIGHT OATH:
>> Clark's infringement of copyright in this thesis is extensive: the first third of the thesis dealing with theory has been copied and regurgitated from Jager, Tagg et al; the body of the thesis, the second third, is derived from the weblogs online since 2005 created by descendants of the photographer Thomas J. Nevin, but with distortions, lies, fabrications of sources, suppression of facts, personal abuse, and fraudulent claims; the last third of the thesis is a jolly japes account of naughty convicts' offences copied from Sue Hood et al publications issued at Port Arthur. Clark openly thanks Susan Hood for writing the thesis for her when Clark was employed at the Port Arthur heritage site as an "Interpretations" manager (see "Acknowledgments".) This thesis is a highly idiosyncratic fantasy which bears little relation to historic reality.

>> Clark's signature and date: The PhD rules specifically state that the limitation on time taken to submit the thesis is 5 years: Clark was enrolled in the PhD program already by 2007, according to what she told Margy Burn at the NLA, and which I repeated in a complaint about both Clark and Burn to the Commonwealth Ombusdman and Australian Copyright Council, so her term exceeded 5 years when she submitted this thesis in November 2015, and it was not accepted until March 2016. That's 8 years. The award is therefore highly irregular, illegal even.

PAGE 3 ABSTRACT:
>> The 350 "convict portraits" - ie the police mugshots of prisoners taken by T. J. Nevin at the Hobart Gaol, were not created at Port Arthur in 1873-1874. The extant bundle of cdvs which are inscribed on the versos "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" were inscribed in 1915 by J W Beattie as tourism propaganda for the Tasmanian Gov't. Clark's thesis is also at base nothing more than tourism propaganda for the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority, her former employer. She "wrote" most of the thesis in her employer's time to impress Board members and other staff.

>>A convenient pretence by Clark to ignore the facts about Thomas J, Nevin online since 2005 at thomasnevin.com
tasmanianphotographer.blogspot.com
prisonerpics.blogspot.com

>> These are NOT EPHEMERAL sites. Each post and its revisions was and can still be retrieved as hard copy paper print.

>> There is no PROBABILITY whatsoever, no proof, no evidence, no reason or justification to believe such a proposition. Clark needs to define in percentage terms her use of this concept "probable", because she gives NO PLAUSIBLE EVIDENCE that A. H. Boyd ever took a photograph of anyone amongst all the padding she puts around her argument in his name. What IS evident here is the pitfall that heritage site workers fall into: they have an old cottage, and so stuff it to the rafters with every old object at hand to create atmosphere, calling the mishmash an "interpretation". The Port Arthur site is a prime example; Runnymede is another, and so is Mawson's Hut in Hobart, all full of stuff that never belonged to the house, and its owners. Clark's thesis is stuffed to the rafters with material derived from everywhere. There is nothing ORIGINAL, nothing AUTHENTIC about the so-called research. It is simply an excuse to vent maliciousness around the names of Thomas Nevin, and Dr (Kerry) Williams for no discernible reason other than wanting to punish T. J. Nevin for not being a transported convict, and his great granddaughter Kerry Williams for not being black (Aboriginal, mullato, colored), both identities being so dear to Clark as a source of exploitation.

>> Nonsense. The photographs were taken at the Hobart Gaol by Nevin for the police, and copies were circulated to regional gaols, including Port Arthur,

>> Again, rubbish.

PAGE 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
>> Hamish Maxwell Stewart's use of statistics would have been useful in helping Clark define the concept "probable". Stefan Petrow must be petty-minded to have approved the vituperations directed at Kerry Williams and Nevin expressed in Clark's various ungrammatical sentences.

>> Clark thanks Stefan Petrow's "eagle-eyed editing" - does that include her ungrammatical sentences, her personal sledging of Dr Kerry Williams, her fabrications of primary sources ?

>> Clark's communications with these people - eg. Carr, Davies, Farmery, Long, and Rieusset - centred on garrnering negative comments about Kerry Williams. None of these library and museum workers gave her information that was not already
published.

>> ... "so long" - yes, without the Nevin weblogs which appeared online in 2005, Clark would not have a thesis.

PAGE 6 CONTENTS:
>> The bulk of this thesis, pages 29-173, has been derived from ideas, images, texts etc in the weblogs online about Thomas J. Nevin. Clark has not personally contributed a single idea, image or text to the Nevin weblogs authors, nor have the weblog authors voluntarily contributed to her publications and thesis, SO SHE CANNOT CLAIM COLLUSION IN ANY FORM or DIRECTION with us. Her theft of our intellectual property is an emboldened and brazen pretension at setting herself up with academic credentials at our expense.

PAGE 7 PREAMBLE:
>> Inappropriate and irrelevant, suited to a fictional work, not a thesis. Clark had no interest in the "convict photographs" prior to contact with Kerry Williams in 2005.

PAGE 8 INTRODUCTION :
>> Here we are again at a heritage site with a heritage site worker: without a mystery there can be no ghost tour; without a mystery photographer Clark has no argument: it's a fallacious set-up from the start.

>> Boyd is given his full name, but not Nevin. Clark shows NO RESPECT ANYWHERE IN THIS THESIS TO NEVIN, to his work, to his family, to his descendants, nor to those experts, curators etc, who have provided research on Nevin and his accreditation to the mugshots since the 1970s.

>> Quite of a few of the extant photographs of prisoners show men who were "native" - locally born - and not pre-1853 transportees - who were sent to Port Arthur after being photographed at the Hobart Gaol from 1871, and returned again to the Hobart Gaol in 1873. And quite a few men in the photographs never went to Port Arthur.

PAGE 9:
>> There are no mysteries about mugshots taken in 1874 or 1974 or 2014. They all served the same purpose.

PAGE 13:
>> Clark co-opts the reader with this assumption from the outset, so why waste 300 pages of a PhD thesis pretending there's a "mystery"?

>> Many hundreds (400) more photographs and prints of Tasmanian prisoners are extant in public collections, dated from Nevin's first commission in 1872 to his last in the late 1880s.

>> This is NOT a "fact": Beattie and Searle wrote "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" on the cdv versos in 1915 as tourism propaganda for the international and interstate market when copies were displayed on the fake hulk Success in Hobart, Sydney etc.

PAGE 28:
>> The copyright owners of all this material which Clark has "summarised" should take a close look for her numerous infringements.

PAGE 29 Chapter 2:
>> Image caption: Why is the catalogue and call number at the NLA not noted here? The captions used by Clark underneath the four images are amateurish. For a thesis ABOUT photographs, photographs are noticeably absent, and the four which have been included are all erroneously labelled. Here again is the ridiculous premise "Photographer: probably Commandant A. H. Boyd" More about the NLA further on.

>> The foregone assumption again that the prisoners were photographed at Port Arthur, leaving no room for a fair consideration of the alternative.

PAGE 30:
>> Photographer T. J. Nevin was at Port Arthur in February 1872; in August 1873; in May 1874; in December 1875; etc

>> Which photographs? They all have catalogue numbers, so why are they not listed by collection, institution, numbers etc?

PAGE 48:
>> This description of deviancy perfectly applies to Clark's own behaviour since 2005; Her hostility directed at Nevin and his descendants she has sought to share with librarians, museum and heritage site workers, and now uses this thesis as a further conduit.

PAGE 58 Chapter3:
>> Image caption: This cartoon appeared in specific contexts in several publications from the 1870s (Sydney Morning Herald etc), to web sites, so where are references?

PAGE 66:
>> Footnote: Jager appeared on the Nevin weblogs in 2007; Clark misuses the reference without checking the original text.

PAGE 75:
>> Clark has sourced this from the Nevin weblogs without checking the source.

PAGE 80:
>> This extended discussion of the governor Gardner taking photographs himself at Bristol prison forms the basis of the assumption that A H. Boyd at Port Arthur did the same. It is a forced comparison, without proof of any kind in Boyd's favour.

PAGE 98:
>> They are not "Port Arthur photographs". They are Hobart Gaol photographs.

PAGE 101:
>> The post in 2008 on the Nevin weblogs which included this Act was so aggressively hacked by Clark et al that we had to repost it and block her ISP.

PAGE 139 Chapter 5:
>> From this page on - until Clark moves into detailing the jolly escapades in the last chapters of these naughty convicts of whom she is so fond - from here on page 139 to page 250, Clark has availed herself of every detail she could squeeze dry from our Thomas Nevin web sites. Theft of our intellectual property is just the half of it - a dozen lies appear on every page where Nevin's name is mentioned.

>> Thomas J. Nevin ran two studios and collaborated with five professional and amateur photographers from 1864 through to the late 1880s. He worked closely with police and the HCC administration from 1872 until 1888, commissioned by the Surveyor-General James CALDER and the Attorney-General W.R. GIBLIN.

>> Footnote: Clark got lucky at the NLA. The NLA valuer of 19th century photographs, Warwick Reeder, had made the error of copying Chris Long's published error about Boyd (1995), for his thesis. When Reeder met Kerry Williams at the NLA in 2001, he became most anxious to cover up the error. He used Clark at Port Arthur to write this pathetic article so that he could have the NLA apply it to every online catalogue entry of their collection of 83 "Port Arthur convicts" photographs. It was a serendipitous opportunity that could validate Reeder's MA thesis to make his Boyd attribution to appear to be correct after all.

PAGE 140:
>> Clark the gambler, the gossip, the gleaner - she has proved nothing about these Tasmanian prisoner photographs that would merit the rhetoric about Boyd.

>> Alfred? surely not.

PAGE 142;
>> If Clark can't find it, it never existed, that's her modus operandi.

PAGE 143:
>> There's no case for a hypothesis. These accounts originate in ignorance, poor research, lazy self-referential citations within the photohistory culture, underscored by their social pretension as art historians.

PAGE 144:
>> I reviewed all these late 20th century publications in 2007 on the Nevin weblogs; each had repeated the rumour spread in the 1980s about Boyd photographing prisoners, published first by Chris Long, repeated by Reeder, Ennis, Crombie, etc, none of whom bothered to check the validity of the rumour, which was just hearsay in any case, and which is all that it remains.

>> Clark has fabricated this business about the photographic house and the dates 1872, 1874, hoping that her BA credentials in Archaeology give the lie some validity. She needs to supply the authentic documents.

PAGE 146:
>> There was no planned ad hoc personalised amateur PROJECT by Boyd. The COMMISSION to use the commercial photographer T. J. NEVIN on government contract was settled in February 1872 by W. R. Giblin Tas A-G at the visit by the former Premier of Victoria and the Victorian Solicitor-General.

PAGE 147:
>> Not Boyd's OWN equipment. These documents in no way prove that Boyd ever took a single photograph, whether of a person, a prisoner, or a landscape. Where is Woolley's 1866 cdv of Boyd? Is Clark so MEAN-FISTED that she hasn't bought a copy for her thesis? The baby Boyd she talks about in a run down of his biography is spoken of in tones second only to adorers of the baby Jesus. Of course, she doesn't mention that he was sacked from the Orphan School New Town for MISOGYNY - in 1864 - to warrant dismissal because of misogyny in those Victorian times would indicate he must have been a real bastard.

>> The inscription with Boyd's name on this photograph is fraudulent, written in 1984 by Susan Hood and/or Chris Long.

PAGE 148:
>> Clark just hasn't looked for the right documents and dates, so of course she hasn't found anything, She is just repeating idle chat by Chris Long who dreamed up this prerequisite of a tender.

PAGE 149:
>> There is no record in the Tasmanian Police Gazettes of this John Smith - Clark has fabricated this little tidbit to further weigh her argument towards Boyd. Boyd DID NOT photograph prisoners - end of story so any of these little speculative tidbits are fragments of hope from Clark's desperate imagination.

PAGE 150:
>> Try harder.

>> Poor Nevin, on trial for being a real photographer, whereas A. H. Boyd, a tyrant and bully who never photographed a living person or indeed anything at all, is the GOLDEN BOY for Clark and her cronies at the Port Arthur Heritage site.

>> Nevin had three master mariner in-laws in his wife's family, with whom he voyaged from ports as far south as the Tasman peninsula to intercolonial ports.

PAGE 151:
>> This is the famous RUMOUR from Boyd descendants.

>> This sentence is an example of Clark's poor control of the English language. It is a semantic contradiction, approved by her proof reader Stefan Petrow. It's Clark with her toxic emotions way out of control, so desperate is she to trivialise Nevin. Kerry, for anyone who wants to know, is a direct genetic descendant of Thomas J. Nevin and Elizabeth Rachel Day, a great granddaughter and one of hundreds of their descendants.

>> All of our "evidence" on the Nevin websites is meticulously supported with original primary historical documents and original historical photographs sourced from public and private collections. This is the multimodal future of "evidence" - NOT the format of the traditional thesis with footnotes which the reader has to chase from one page to the next, or worse, to the appendices. Worse still, the reader is coerced into believing the footnote references are real because the originals of the primary documents are never visible; the assertion by the thesis writer that the reference is valid and the document referenced actually exists should never be accepted at face value, especially in this thesis by this writer Julia Clark. Her thesis is devoid of any supporting authentic historical document. The four images of convicts are so poorly reproduced, they are barely recognizable. It is a bizarre document, written with much hostility towards the subject, and shows no evidence that Clark actually conducted any original research of her own.

>> Footnote: this URL which Clark cites - "Tasmanianphotographers.com" was never owned by Dr Kerry Williams. Nor has it ever existed. The correct url is https://tasmanianphotographer.blogspot.com/

>> Clark is delusional if she thinks her off-hand remarks and casual lies denying her extensive use of our Thomas J. Nevin web sites are to be believed. We have not deleted any post or its revision since transferring from NY based Blogharbor in 2003 to our two current hosts in April 2007. We have recorded more than 5000 clicks every few months, year in, year out, since 2005, by Clark from her ISP and from the ISP at Port Arthur on the hundreds of our lengthy posts detailing Nevin's work on the mugshots at these URLS -
https://thomasnevin.com
https://tasmanianphotographer.blogspot.com
https://prisonerpics.blogspot.com

PAGE 152:
>> Really? Who is Clark trying to blame for "tricking" the world into believing Nevin took the 1870s Tasmanian mugshots?

>> This claim is fabricated by Clark to pretend a lie was afoot. No one claimed these prison mugshots printed in cdv mounts were all stamped verso with a studio stamp, Nevin's or any one else's, though Nevin stamped one per bundle of a 100 for copyright and govt contract commission.

>> Footnote: Sylvia Carr was not especially conversant with the history of the NLA's acquisition of the "Port Arthur convicts" photographs, as they call them - in fact, no one on the NLA staff had ever bothered to consult the original accessioned files and curatorial documents of the subsequent exhibition located in Manuscripts which have all been posted on these Nevin weblogs to establish once and for all that the NLA DOES hold the documents pertaining to Nevin's attribution as the photographer of the NLA's collection of prisoner mugshots.

PAGE 153:
>> Alan Davies said no such thing to Dr Kerry Williams when she visited the SLNSW in 2009 to photograph the eleven (11) prisoner photos catalogued in Nevin's name held there. Clark has NOT provided the SLNSW's Mitchell Collection catalogue or call number for those eleven mugshots, neither here in the text of the thesis nor in the bibliography, but she described our photos online of those prisoner cdvs taken in 2009 to talk down Nevin in her article published in 2010. No thanks was extended, no courtesy, no permission requested to us by Clark - just the usual psychotic vituperations we have come to expect from her.

PAGE 154:
>> Clark says the file is lost. She PROBABLY (her favourite modality) removed it permanently from the Tasmanian Archives Office to make it "lost". She has readily falsified references in this thesis and in the 2010 JACHS article.

>> The onus is on Clark to produce the exact historical document from TAHO for this reference. Otherwise she has fabricated it to cover her prevarications, or her "bet each way" as she so crudely phrases it.

>> Footnote: The Town Hall keeper, Mr Lonergan gave Kerry Williams a guided tour in April 2012 of the Mayor's Court and the police cells which were located in the Town Hall basement. Nevin was both Office and Hall Keeper for the HCC, and photographer for the central Hobart Municipal Police Office located on the other side of the entry hall of the Town Hall where he photographed prisoners on arrest and discharge. This footnote 673 demonstrates Clark's ignorance of the courts system, the function of the Municipal Police Office, and an ugly willingness to badmouth "Dr Williams" while attempting to discredit any aspect of Nevin's working life.

>> All of the prisoners were photographed at Hobart, in the Supreme Court at the Hobart Gaol and at the Mayor's Court, Town Hall. The inscription "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" on the versos of about 300 in the bundle originating from the QVMAG were inscribed in 1915 by Beattie and Searle, displayed on the (fake) hulk Success in Hobart, Sydney etc to promote local and interstate tourism to the Port Arthur ruins. Clark is in the same business - tourism spin, most important to the World Heritage application that PAHSMA was hoping to gain when Clark began her Boyd or anti-Nevin project. Claiming that a record does not exist simply because she says she hasn't found it is childish. Lies, deception, fake claims, fraud - there's not much Clark will not lie about.

PAGE 155:
>> Clark needs to submit the original documents from TAHO to support these claims.

>> The Town Hall porter was promoted into the Hall keeper position in 1881. Nevin was Hall and Office Keeper for the HCC from 1876 to 1880, police photographer from 1872 to 1888. Here again is Clark's pathetic attempt to denigrate Nevin. Whose serious drinking problem is at issue here? Sad Julia Clark's, it seems, looking at this thesis which appears to have been written by a sanctimonious drunk. Attempting to write a PhD thesis is in her declining years when her mental faculties were never good from the beginning, is sad. What happened way back when she was sacked from the National Portrait Gallery for lies and deception?

>> One wonders about sanctimonious Julia Clark who sees the world through alcohol. Through A Glass Darkly, as the thesis title she has chosen in fact tells us she does indeed drink to excess.

PAGE 156:
>> Clark is deliberately confusing the several different people called Thomas Nevin in Hobart in these years, including his son, Thomas James Nevin jnr, born 1874 while Nevin was at Port Arthur photographing convicts.

>> Thomas Nevin died in his 81st year in 1923. He was remembered fondly as healthy and active by his grandchildren who were still living at the time of our Nevin web sites appearing online. Boyd by contrast was a belligerent drunk who died when he fell of his horse before his 65th birthday.

>> Here we go on the ghost tour again - "shrouded" and "mystery: - where would Clark be without these words and the word "probable".

>> Ahh, so touching, second only to the baby Jesus.

PAGE 157:
>> No, he was sacked for MISOGYNY, quite a feat.

>> So true, no mention or association of Boyd with photography because HE WASN'T A PHOTOGRAPHER

PAGE 158:
>> Prolific? Rubbish. No photographs have ever been attributed to A. H. Boyd before this nonsense appeared in the 1980s from amateurs such as Chris Long and Warwick Reeder and Elspeth Wishart, each demonstrably resentful enough of published professionals such as Prof. Joan Kerr et al to actually fabricate photohistory based on nothing more than personal whimsy.

PAGE 159:
>> He did not have a studio - this is a fabrication by Clark after Long.

PAGE 160:
>> What? He was sacked for misogyny in 1865, and corruption in 1873.

PAGE 161:
>> Contradictory statements proliferate in this thesis, this example is typical.

PAGE 162:
>> So where are the photographs by A. H. Boyd supposedly taken by him of his family etc? Not one single portrait of a Boyd family member supposedly taken by him has ever been included in any publication on this topic of Boyd's supposed talent for the medium. The reason? Simple. He wasn't a photographer.

>> No man in prison uniform has ever been photographed by A. H. Boyd. No such photograph exists which can be attributed to A. H. Boyd.

PAGE 163:
>> Only if you want to believe in this furphy. Boyd did NOT photograph any single person, male, female, prisoner, visitor - not one photograph supposedly by him has ever been validated.

PAGE 165:
>> Clark needs to produce the original document from TAHO for this statement.

PAGE 166:
>> Our Nevin web sites have documented dozens of prisoners' criminal careers in and out of the Hobart Gaol. Only Clark wants to force the cliche by association "Tasmania + convicts= Port Arthur" because it's good for PAHSMA's business of tourism. Facts only get in the way of a good story, or in this case, a phony thesis.

PAGE 169:
>> Try harder, try the Hobart Gaol records.

PAGE 170:
>> Nevin photographed these prisoners on contract from Feb 1872 at Port Arthur and the Hobart Gaol. Their photographs were filed in the Hobart Gaol Photo Books. Copies were sent to Port Arthur and other regional police stations, accompanying the prisoner's movements. There is no evidence that Boyd took prisoners' photographs, nor even that there were facilities for the purpose at Port Arthur. In any event, Boyd was gone from Port Arthur by December 1873, so Travers Solly's request for photographs of the Gregsons, Kilpatrick and Harrington in a letter that might appear to be addressed to Boyd in January 1874 was probably ignored. Solly was only assuming their photographs existed before that date. The Gregson brothers were definitely photographed at the Hobart Police Office on transfer from Launceston after capture in February 1874 by T. J. Nevin, and not before that date. Photographs of Kilpatrick and Harrington, if they ever existed, are missing, unidentified, or were never held in public collections.

PAGE 171 Conclusion
>> It is not remotely likely and certainly not possible let alone "probable" that A. H. Boyd photographed prisoners at Port Arthur in 1873-4. The proposition is a fantasy spin for tourists, nothing more. Clark should be warned that if she keeps telling this story, she risks making a terrible fool of herself and those she corrals as supports (her cohort of deviants), and that if she keeps up the personal abuse directed at Dr. Kerry Williams, she is liable to process in civil action.

PAGE 173 Chapter 6:
>> Image caption: Again, no NLA catalogue number. The reproduction is terrible. Fancy, a thesis about photos and the reproductions are rubbish, all four of them in a document of more than 300 pages.

>> There is NO MYSTERY.

PAGE 175:
>> They were photographed at the Hobart Gaol by T. J. Nevin, govt contractor.

PAGE 201:
>> Three times this date regarding Alfred Malden/Maldon's crime is incorrect - the correct date for the Mercury reference is 28 April 1871. Clark has just copied the error from some earlier writer, as she has done for most of this section on the jolly japes of the "Port Arthur convicts" .

PAGE 246 Chapter 8:
>> Image caption: Another poorly captioned image intended to deceive. No NLA call no, no catalogue no., no information about the prisoner etc.

PAGE 294:
>> Three times the citation of this date regarding Alfred Malden/Maldon's crime is incorrect - the correct date for the Mercury reference is 28 April 1871. Clark has just copied the error from some earlier writer, as she has done for most of this section on the jolly japes of the "Port Arthur convicts" .

PAGE 320 CONCLUSION:
>> The whole opening paragraph is a travesty of the facts about these photographs. A. H. Boyd DID NOT sit these men down to photograph them - this is fake history. It is an outrageous example of politically driven corporate psychopathy devised and promulgated by the PAHSMA board to consolidate their academic credibility. Poor Julia Clark really believes she has done them a favour. Her cosy fantasy is an attempt to endear herself with flattery to the Port Arthur Historic Site board members who have colluded in this travesty, eg. Michael Field, who is both a PAHSMA board member and the University of Tasmania Chancellor.

PAGE 322:

>> First, Maldon's full name was Alfred Malden, not John Maldon; second, none of these prisoners " sat before the Commandant to have their photographs taken" - they sat for photographer Thomas J. Nevin. Typical of the whole thesis, this statement by Clark contains mistakes copied from earlier writers, references which do not exist, fudging with facts, fantasy and laissez-faire..

PAGE 329:

>> There are two more cdv mugshots held at the National Library of Australia of Maldon by Nevin, in addition to the copy at the TMAG, all duplicates from Thomas Nevin's single sitting with prisoner Alfred Maldon/Malden taken at the Hobart Gaol Feb 1874. The fact that another copy is held at the Port Arthur heritage site is proof that Clark has copied the earlier writings of staff there, including their mistakes (see comments on Maldon above), a clear indication that very little if anything in this thesis is originally Clark's work.

PAGE 341: Bibliography
>> This photograph and its various copies and duplicates housed in Anson albums all appear on the Nevin web sites, photographed by Kerry Williams at the SLNSW Mitchell Library in 2009. Clark has used our photograph without our attribution or permission in the thesis [see photo below].

PAGE 370:
>> This article is a travesty of academic research. Clark's research MO is gossip, gambling and gleaning, a pathetically pretentious attempt at spinning propaganda for the Port Arthur heritage site using the Nevin web sites which, for reasons known only to ignorant herself, she assumed entitlement.

PAGE 378:
>> Guess what's missing!!!
Nevin, Thomas J. (1842-1923) at -
thomasnevin..com
tasmanianphotographer.blogspot.com
prisonerpics.blogspot.com

>> Since Clark sourced so much information, inspiration and motivation to attempt a thesis from gouging out the eyes of the extensive web sites about the REAL photographer of the so-called "Port Arthur convicts", at -
thomasnevin..com
tasmanianphotographer.blogspot.com
prisonerpics.blogspot.com

- it is a thing of wonder that she deliberately suppresses the bibliographic references.
It is what it is - fraud.

PAGE 380:
>> What is significant by absence here is the name of Dr Kerry Williams and the rude emails Clark sent her back in 2005, or the website she created in 2013 with a proxy to bully Kerry Williams, or the pdfs she concocted containing a fake family history and caricatured images of Kerry Williams, not to mention the stalking of Nevin family members, and the dozens of emails sent to libraries, museums and heritage sites, all deriding Kerry Williams over more than a decade. Julia Clark, in short, is a major troll and bully. Her parasitic thesis would not exist without our research, our Nevin web sites and Nevin descendants such as Dr Kerry Williams. That brief contact back in 2005 seemed to incite such a singular deep resentment in Clark that she chose the totally inappropriate vehicle of a PhD degree to vent it.

Ref: Mitchell Library, SLNSW
Views in Tasmania, Vol. II, ca. 1885-1894 / Anson Brothers.
PXD 511/no. 10 ‘Port Arthur during convict occupation’
Taken at the SLNSW
Photo copyright © KLW NFC 2009 ARR

This is the fake attribution, the one and only photograph in existence which bears A. H. Boyd's name pencilled on the bottom right hand corner (beneath the magnifying lens). This photograph of buildings at the Port Arthur prison which was published by the Anson brothers in 1894 was annotated with A. H. Boyd's name in pencil in 1984, probably by Port Arthur employee Susan Hood et al to massage the rumour created about A. H. Boyd during an exhibition at Port Arthur in 1983 of a selection of 50 mugshots taken by T. J. Nevin which were sourced from the Beattie collection at the QVMAG but not returned there, deposited instead at the TMAG. From fake attribution to fraudulent thesis: congratulations, PAHSMA and Julia Clark.

ADDENDA: the idiocies of Julia Clark
A toxic habit: this Abstract (webshot below) written in 2002 by Julia Clark shows just how oblivious she is to her own "toxic mythmaking". Her particular brand of nonsensical hero discourse is expressed here too in a series of strangely ungrammatical sentences - "That .... That .... That .... and spelling errors, all contributing to what she must suppose to be "stylish". It comes as no surprise that she talks to rooms, especially those that never existed, such as the dark room she created for her hero, prison commandant A. H. Boyd at Port Arthur, to justify her fantasy that he miraculously became a photographer of "convicts" there (2010). In her article published by the Journal of Australian Colonial History in 2010, which was her gamble at escalating abuse and plagiarism of our research with impunity, she credited her hero A. H. Boyd with photographing Tasmanian prisoner George Ormiston in 1800, (JACHS, 2010, p. 88, Fig. 3)! Now that is 40 years before the invention of photography, so clever was her Mr. Boyd!! In her own words (and very few in this article ARE her own words apart from the archaeological fictions), Clark stated clearly that NO official record of A.H. Boyd taking prisoners' photographs exist, yet she has persisted in arguing his case ever since (JACHS, 2010:90). For those who disagree with Julia Clark she prescribes herself as an "emetic"(Anderson 2011) to purge them of their "toxic-mythmaking" views. Clearly, Julia Clark is an obsessive whose scatological imagery of vomit, bodily evacuations, poisons etc underscores in every instance a total lack of self-control, a hatred of her work and of her cohort. What she is not, by any stretch of the imagination, is a professional. Her articles and thesis are best consigned to the rubbish bin of Tasmanian history.

All are "toxic myth-making" except Julia Clark herself (2002).
Review our comments on her thesis (2015) here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12Rfp9h454ChZ70kMJxRICjPpVTR-0qNf/view?usp=sharing

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 large 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.

Click here for KEY DATES 1842-1923

Try thumbnail SEARCHING here and

here BIOGRAPHICA thumbnail index

Our 19th Anniversary 2005-2024

Click on image for full list tagged "About women"

Nineteen years ago (before 2005 actually) we started blogging about Tasmanian photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923). We look forward to another year or so as the project draws closer to completion. Contributions and donations are most welcome, and many thanks for your involvement.

SABBATICAL 2023-24: We are taking a short break from regular posting through 2024 but will be available to answer queries.

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 was built on the traditional lands, nipaluna/Hobart, 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 people of the Australian Capital Territory 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

1854: a year on shore at Hobart Tasmania for Captain Edward Goldsmith

The LONG con: our comments on Julia Clark's fraudulent thesis

Copyright notice

Featured Post

Captains, emigrants and convicts: the summer of 1842-1843 in Hobart, VDL

Galleries: posts thumbnails

Search

Other versions & related sites (ext)

Translate