T. J. Nevin's 1870s mugshots the inspiration for 21st century artworks

POLICE MUGSHOTS Tasmania 1870s by T. J. Nevin
ARTWORK 21st century based on 1870s mugshots
LISA SHAROUN 2015
KENNETH POMLETT 2013

Ancestors by Lisa Sharoun 2015
Visual Artwork: Ancestors. [Artefact] (2015)
Source: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/129233/
Creator: Scharoun, Lisa
Source: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Scharoun,_Lisa.html
Personal communication 26 January 2020:
Copies courtesy of the artist for permission to display the artworks online

Professor Lisa Sharoun created the seven artworks based on T. J. Nevin's 1870s mugshots titled Ancestors for inclusion in a group exhibition of University of Canberra academics from the faculty of Arts and Design. The exhibition took place at the Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra in 2015 with the broad theme around cultural heritage. Accompanying each piece was a citation from our online research about Thomas J. Nevin's photographic work for police, plus acknowledgement of the public collections which hold copies of the photographs, e.g. Archives Office Tasmania. These art pieces were not for sale and remain in the artist's private collection.

The following description which accompanied each of the exhibition pieces (2015) is from the catalogue. These notes were sourced from QUT (2020) where Professor Sharoun is currently Head of School of Design in the Creative Industries Faculty.
Description
Research background
The images presented are inspired by photographic images of the prisoners of Port Arthur taken by the Tasmanian photographer Thomas Nevin in the 1870s. The photos were used as mug-shots, legal instruments taken for the police and not meant to be ethnographic artifacts. The images are, however, strikingly beautiful with the expressions and poses of the prisoners allowing us a window into the lives of these men. When Nevin’s photos were first exhibited together at the Queen Victoria Museum, Launceston in 1977 the curator, Mr. John McPhee, noted; ‘These photographs are among the most moving and powerful images of the human condition.’

Through the paintings presented, you can sense the emotions of these long-deceased spirits; their presence is represented as a ghostly imprint on the golden surface of this vast and beautiful land.

Research Statement
In the novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera wrote ‘The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’ In this exhibition, I am presenting a collection of images that explore the concepts of power, servitude, memory and the ability to forget. From 1787–1868 thousands of men and women were transported in chains to a vast island on the other side of the world. This forced mass migration of the lower social classes of British society deeply influenced the spirit of the nascent Nation. When transportation to Australia effectively ended an attempt was made to erase the convict ‘stain’ from collective memory. Even the name of ‘Van Diemen’s Land,’ home to some of the harshest of the Australian prisons, was removed in order to change public perception of the place.

In her book Australia’s Birthstain, Babette Smith explains: ‘The penal colony had been the most talked about experiment in the world in its first 100 years and subsequently became the object of distortion, cover-up and, finally, silence in the second.’ The names, places and memories of the convict settlements were relegated to a troubled past, one that should never taint the promising golden future of the colony. Although there was a conscious effort to collectively forget the stain of convict servitude, its memory is unmistakably woven into the fabric of the Australian psyche. It wasn’t until the late 1970’s, when the government fully allowed families exposure to convict records, that Australians took a favorable look at past familial connections to the convicts. For the many years that the government censored, or in some cases destroyed, convict records family stories and histories became distant or lost altogether.

Kundera, M. (1980) The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, New York: A.A. Knopf.
Smith, B. (2009) Australia’s Birthstain: the startling legacy of the convict era. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
[Source: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/129233/. Accessed 12 May 2020]



[Above]:  Wall display of seven artworks by Lisa Sharoun based on photographs of Tasmanian prisoners (mugshots) taken for police by government contractor and commercial photographer Thomas J. Nevin, Hobart, 1870s.

From the exhibition, Ancestors. Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra 2015
Creator: Lisa SHAROUN
Source: personal communication (copyright permission)

[Below:]  Thomas Nevin's 1870s photographs of five of the seven prisoners which provided inspiration for Lisa Sharoun's portraits. Originals, duplicates and copies of these particular photographs are held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania; the Archives Office of Tasmania, Hobart; and the National Library of Australia, Canberra.



[Above:] Left to right:
Painted portrait of Tasmanian prisoner Thomas JACKSON 1870s
Painted portrait of Tasmanian prisoner William or John WOODLEY 1870s
Artist:  © Lisa Sharoun 2015 Private Collection

[Below:] Left to right:
Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner Thomas JACKSON 1870s
Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner William or John WOODLEY 1870s

  

Left: Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner Thomas JACKSON 1870s
Right: Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner William or John WOODLEY 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Black and white copies of sepia prints printed in cdv mounts
From the QVMAG Collection, Launceston, Tasmania
These prints are held at the QVMAG, Launceston, Tasmania

Prisoner William or John WOODLEY 



Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner William or John WOODLEY 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Albumen print in buff mount
This cdv is held at the National Library of Australia, Canberra
Read more about William or John WOODLEY here


Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner William or John WOODLEY 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Caption: "William Woodley convict, transported per Moffatt. Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin".
Paper copy of the cdv held at the QVMAG
Archives Office Tasmania Ref: PH30/1/3220



[Above:] Left to right:
Painted portrait of prisoner William WALKER 1870s
Painted portrait of prisoner Michael HARRIGAN 1870s
Painted portrait of prisoner Philip AYLWARD 1870s
Artist: © Lisa Sharoun 2015 Private Collection

[Below:] Left to right:
Photograph of prisoner William WALKER 1870s
Photograph of prisoner Michael HARRIGAN 1870s
Photograph of prisoner Philip AYLWARD 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)




[Below:]
Photograph of prisoner William WALKER 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Black and white copy of sepia print printed in cdv mount
From the QVMAG Collection, Launceston, Tasmania



Photograph of prisoner William WALKER 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Black and white copy of sepia print printed in cdv mount
From the QVMAG Collection, Launceston, Tasmania
Read more about William WALKER here



Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner William WALKER 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Caption: "William Walker convict, transported per Asia. Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin".
Paper copy of the cdv held at the QVMAG
Archives Office Tasmania Ref: PH30/1/3221



Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner William WALKER 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Albumen print in buff mount
This cdv is held at the National Library of Australia, Canberra

[Below:]
Prisoner Michael HARRIGAN or SULLIVAN
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) 1880s?
Black and white copy of sepia print printed in cdv mount
Verso indicates alias, crime, date of transportation, photo no. 466 etc
From the QVMAG Collection, Launceston, Tasmania



This print is held in the QVMAG Collection

[Below:]
Prisoner Philip AYLWARD 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Black and white copy of sepia print printed in cdv mount
From the QVMAG Collection, Launceston, Tasmania
Read more about Phillip AYLWARD here



Black and white copy of cdv held at the QVMAG, Launceston


Photograph of Tasmanian prisoner Phillip AYLWARD 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)
Caption: "Arrived as a military pensioner per Blenheim. Tried Hobart 1872. Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin".
Paper copy of the cdv held at the QVMAG
Archives Office Tasmania Ref: PH30/1/3209


Watercolours by Kenneth Pomlett
"I never lost the look of the man" - K. Pomlett



Kenneth Pomlett at home with his watercolours of 1870s Tasmanian prisoners
Screenshot from YouTube video (below)



Uploaded to YouTube on 3 June 2013
Video by Soma Kondo
https://youtu.be/A7jnGQduE70
NB: audio is not clear.

Watch artist Kenneth Pomlett create his watercolours, and listen to his comments on the process. He points to the watercolours of Tasmanian prisoners on his wall, recounting his source as the small carte-de-visite photographs from the 1870s. Each painting took him about four hours. When exactly he produced them is not mentioned. He most likely discovered the photographs here online in our posts about each prisoner, their criminal offences in the 1870s, and the date on which Thomas J. Nevin photographed them. These six same watercolours left his possession at some point, to be snapped up at auction by Kim Sgarbossa. Read her account below.



Six watercolours by artist Ken Pomlett (2012?) of Tasmanian prisoners based on police mugshots taken by Thomas J. Nevin in the 1870s.
Copyright © Private Collection of Kim Sgarbossa

Kim Sgarbossa purchased these artworks at an auction and posted this photograph of them hanging in pride of place on her wall at home to the Facebook page, Tasmanian History, with these comments, dated 26 February 2020:

I rescued these gorgeous water colours by artist K. Pomlett. Not many people really like them but I love the history that comes with them and the lives of convicts in early Tasmania and they have pride of place in our home.
They are 6 convicts with their history. Bottom left is Thomas Francis ... Duncan MacDonald born 1812, One eyed Dennis Doherty born 1814, James Harper born 1820, George White born 1821, Peter Killeen born 1806 ... there was no interest so I just had to, not a popular pick up with my friends who think they are ugly but the history is priceless I love them ... all I know [about the artist] is he’s a Tasmanian artist who I believe has a studio in the Huon. I looked him up and these paintings were in his studio wall so I’m not sure why they ended up in a box of frames at an auction ...

The six prisoners featured in these paintings are as follows, from top left to bottom right:
Photograph of prisoner Duncan MACDONALD 1870s
Photograph of prisoner James HARPER 1870s
Photograph of prisoner Denis DOGHERTY 1870s
Photograph of prisoner George WILSON aka WHITE 1870s
Photograph of prisoner Thomas FRANCIS 1870s
Photograph of prisoner Peter KILLEEN 1870s
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)







Top line: left to right
Prisoner Duncan MACDONALD



Prisoner Duncan MACDONALD
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
National Library of Australia nla.obj-142917917

Prisoner James HARPER



Prisoner James HARPER
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
National Library of Australia nla.obj-142914518
Read more about James Harper here

Middle line: left to right
Prisoner Denis DOGHERTY



Prisoner Denis DOGHERTY
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
National Library of Australia nla.obj-142914810
Read more about Denis Dogherty here

Prisoner George WILSON aka WHITE



Prisoner George WILSON aka WHITE
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
National Library of Australia nla.obj-142919110
Read more about George White or Wilson here

Bottom line: left to right
Prisoner Thomas FRANCIS



Prisoner Thomas FRANCIS
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
National Library of Australia nla.obj-142916416
Read more about Thomas Francis here.

Prisoner Peter KILLEEN



Prisoner Peter KILLEEN
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
National Library of Australia nla.obj-142917714
Read more about Peter Killeen here.

Watercolours sourced online from Kim Sgarbossa' post to Facebook.
Photographs sourced from the National Library of Australia
Please note: the NLA has recently misattributed their collection
Research copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2003-2020

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Thomas Nevin's stereographs from the Pedder collection

LADY FRANKLIN MUSEUM, Ancanthe
THE PEDDER COLLECTION (TMAG) Stereographs by Thomas J. Nevin
NEVIN FAMILY at Kangaroo Valley (Lenah Valley, Tas)

Lady Franklin Museum stereograph (TMAG)
This fine stereograph by Thomas J.Nevin which is held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery was noted verso by someone in pencil as "best picture". It may have been chosen by Dan Sprod for publication in 1977 (see book below), or it may have been used as early as 1949 by the Tasmanian Amateur Cine Society when they produced a silent 16mm film of the re-opening ceremony of Lady Franklin Museum. A black and white single image printed from this stereograph appears third in the opening sequence of stills (see video below).



Group on the steps of Lady Franklin's Museum, Ancanthe, Kangaroo Valley, Hobart.
Stereograph by Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1868
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.34



Verso: Group on the steps of the Lady Franklin Museum, Ancanthe, Kangaroo Valley, Hobart.
Stereograph by Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1868
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.34

No longer available online, this stereograph was catalogued online at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in 2006 with the following details:

TMAG Catalogue (text database):
Ref: Q1994.56.34
ITEM NAME: Photograph:
MEDIUM: sepia salt paper stereoscope,
MAKER: T Nevin [Artist];
TITLE: 'Lady Franklin's Museum, Kangaroo Valley'
DATE: 1870c
DESCRIPTION : Group of people at Lady Franklin's Museum, Kangaroo Valley
INSCRIPTIONS & MARKS: On back in pencil: Mrs A Pedder / and in different hand Lady Franklin's Museum/ KangarooValley and in different hand again best picture.

Royal Society of Tasmania print (UTas)
This print from Thomas Nevin's stereograph of a group at the Lady Franklin Museum, Kangaroo Valley, Tasmania, is held in the Royal Society's Special Collections, University of Tasmania library. Frederick Stops, a colleague of Nevin's at the Municipal Police Office who was the right-hand man to the Attorney-General the Hon. W. G. Giblin, may have acquired it along with another landscape by Nevin - Melville St. Under Snow(1868) - prints of which subsequently surfaced in the TMAG Collections as well in the Royal Society collections at the University of Tasmania. Frederick Stop's son, W. J. T. Stops, was Vice-chancellor of the university at the time of his father's death in 1926.



Group at the Lady Franklin Museum Kangaroo Valley (Tas)
Stereograph c.a. 1871 by Thomas J. Nevin
Royal Society ePrints University of Tasmania No. 18-9

Tasmanian Amateur Cine Society 1949
Watch the women in their period costumes battle the wind!



Source: YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/qD_m4aU1sJA
Tasmanian Archives: The Tasmanian Amateur Cine Society Presents Re-opening ceremony of Lady Franklin Museum ; shows Sir Hugh and Lady Binney, Stephen Hickman, Robert and Gertrude Cosgrove; guests dressed in period costume. See Mercury 14 Nov 1949, p1 and p4. (black and white, silent) - 16mm B&W 24 fps 100 ft - 4m 14s - Reference: NS6350/1/22
Dan Sprod's compilation 1977



This black and white image was poorly reproduced from the original stereograph by Thomas Nevin for inclusion in the 1977 compilation of old photographs published with the title Victorian and Edwardian Hobart from old photographs by Dan Sprod. No index was included in the final book, nor were attributions by name to Thomas Nevin for several of his photographs including this reproduction from Nevin's stereograph of the group at the Lady Franklin Museum. The date given by Sprod is a little too early. It was taken by Nevin ca. 1867-8 in a series of stereographs he produced for visitors to Kangaroo Valley (now Lenah Valley) which included a group at Sir John Franklin's tree.



Photo copyright © KLW NFC 2015

 CAPTION:
172. Right. Not Greece but Van Diemen's Land, ca. 1860. Lady Jane Franklin's romantic ideas found expression in this tiny Greek temple, erected in 1842-43 on her Lenah Valley estate, Ancanthe, The building, which still stands, was intended as a museum, particularly for indigenous products.



Photo copyright © KLW NFC 2015
Victorian and Edwardian Hobart from old photographs / [compiled by] Dan Sprod.
Publisher: St. Ives, N.S.W. : John Ferguson, 1977.
Description: 1 vol.
ISBN: 0909134065 :
Notes: Hobart. Social life, 1850-1910. Illustrations (ANB/PRECIS SIN 0152382)
Subjects: Hobart (Tas.)--History--Pictorial works.
Hobart (Tas.)--Social life and customs--Pictorial works.
Other Authors: Sprod, Dan, 1924-, comp.
Bib ID: 2222496



The bridge in the foreground crosses the New Town rivulet. The Lady Franklin Museum sits below the site where John Nevin snr built his cottage (now demolished), next to the house (pictured) above on the rise at 270A Lenah Valley Rd. Photos copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2012 ARR.

Thomas Nevin at Kangaroo Valley
From a grant of 2560 acres five miles north of Hobart to George Hull in 1824, Jane Franklin, wife of lieutenant-governor Sir John Franklin purchased 400 acres (162 ha) in the Kangaroo Valley area near New Town from Hull's estate in 1839 which she named Ancanthe and where she built her museum, hoping to house the colony's natural specimens and a library. Thomas Nevin's father John Nevin snr, built his cottage in 1854 on the one acre within the boundaries of Lady Franklin's estate which was managed in trust to the Wesleyan Church after Lady Franklin's departure in 1843. The photograph Thomas J. Nevin took of the house his father built was exhibited at the Wellington Exhibition in 1868 to complement his father's poem titled "My Cottage in the Wilderness" published the same year. John Nevin snr remained there until his death in 1887.

THE LADY FRANKLIN MUSEUM IN 1871



From Walch's Tasmanian Guide 1871 © KLW NFC Imprint 2012

At Kangaroo Valley, Thomas Nevin photographed day-trippers to the Lady Franklin Museum, school buildings, school children and their teachers, farmers and their fields, ferns with and without snow, rushing water and glistening rocks while developing skills in commercial outdoor stereography from at least 1864.Still a bachelor until 1871, he periodically resided with his parents and two surviving siblings at the house his father John Nevin snr had built on land above the Lady Franklin Museum in the early 1850s. The Museum sat adjacent to the Wesleyan Chapel where John Nevin snr and his daughter Mary Ann Nevin taught school. Although Thomas Nevin had acquired the lease and stock-in-trade of a fully functioning commercial studio in the business district of Hobart Town by 1867 from friend and colleague Alfred Bock, he maintained a separate small commercial studio in New Town close to Ancanthe until the birth of his last child in 1888.



Lenah Valley (1973).Ref: 5172-18.
Southern Met maps
AUTAS001139610562-5172-18
Archives Office Tasmania

John Nevin built his "cottage" in 1854 on land in trust to the Wesleyan Church above the Lady Franklin Museum. The house, since demolished, was located inside the boundaries visible in this Southern Met map of 1973. The land was sold by the Hobart City Council on it acquisition from the Church Trustees (those originally designated by Lady Jane Franklin) in the 1920s.

The Pedder Collection (TMAG)
Lawyers, barristers, magistrates, politicians, police superintendents, detectives, their families and their prisoners were photographed by Thomas J. Nevin from the late 1860s to the 1880s. The Pedder family of magistrates and police officers, the family of solicitor John Woodcock Graves the younger, the McVilly family of teachers and police officers, and the family of Attorney-General the Hon. W. R. Giblin, all made use of Thomas J. Nevin's commission with the colonial government's Lands and Survey Department, the Municipal Police Office and Mayor's Court, and the Hobart City Corporation to provide them with stereographic views and carte-de-visite portraits. The stereograph by Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1868-1870 of the Lady Franklin Museum, Kangaroo Valley bearing the inscription "A. Pedder" on verso, is one of least four held in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery collections. Solicitor Alfred Pedder (1881-1977) may have kept these stereographs by Thomas Nevin from the estate of his father, Police Superintendent Frederick Pedder (1841-1923) who was also a colleague of Nevin's at the Municipal Police Office, Hobart. Alfred Pedder's daughter Sylvia in turn may have donated them to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in the 1970s (see Fox, J. 2012, p. 58).

Alfred Pedder's wife, on the other hand, may have acquired photographs directly from Thomas Nevin's studio. Her interest is apparent on the verso of the Lady Franklin Museum stereograph. Inscribed in pencil is her name "Mrs A Pedder". She was in fact Dora Tryphena Elliott whose father John Henry Elliott had not only acquired the lease on Thomas Nevin's old studio at 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart by 1878, he also purchased the public house next door at 142 Elizabeth St., the Royal Standard Hotel, formerly owned by James Spence.

Other examples inscribed verso with "A. Pedder" held in the TMAG collection include these landscape views:

A view of St Mary's Cathedral (R.C.), Hobart, Tasmania




Stereograph in arched buff mount of St Mary's Cathedral Tasmania
Handwritten inscription on verso: "A. Pedder" and "Part of Hobart Town"
Photographer; Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1874
TMAG Ref: Q1994-56-6



Verso of:
Stereograph in arched buff mount of St Mary's Cathedral Tasmania
Handwritten inscription on verso: "A. Pedder" and "Part of Hobart Town"
Photographer; Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1870
TMAG Ref: Q1994-56-6

A view of Harrington Street and the cathedral from Lime Kiln Hill



Hobart from Lime Kiln Hill looking down Harrington Street
Stereograph by Thomas Nevin ca. late 1860s-1870
New Town studio stamp on verso
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.30



Verso:
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Database Ref: Q1994.56.30
Description : Photograph, sepia salt paper stereoscope:
MAKER: Thomas Nevin [photographer];
TITLE: '[Hobart from Lime Kiln Hill looking down Harrington Street; St Mary's, Warwick Street, West Hobart]'
ITEM DATE: 1870s
IMAGE CONTENT: view townscape; .
Size : Mount buff coloured 85 x 173mm Images (2) 73 x 70mm [images rounded at top]
Inscriptions and marks : On back handwritten in pencil: A. Pedder and stamped Thos Nevin/ Newtown

A view from across the Huon River to the town known as Victoria





Stereograph by Thomas J. Nevin, ca. 1870 of river scene
Verso stamp with government Royal Arms insignia,
T. J. Nevin Photographic Artist, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town
Pencil inscription verso "A. Pedder".
Photos recto and verso copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2014-2015
Taken at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 10 November 2014
TMAG Ref: Q16826.19

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) online in 2006 recorded this stereograph with the following details:

Q16826.19 ITEM NAME: photograph:
MEDIUM: albumen silver print sepia toned stereoscope,
MAKER: T J Nevin [Artist];
DATE: 1860s
DESCRIPTION : A waterfront shot. Location is uncertain. Possibly, the Huon.
INSCRIPTIONS & MARKS: T.J. Nevin Photographic Artist 140 Elizabeth StreetHobart Town. Copies may be had at any time. A. Peddar.[ sic]

A group at the Lady Franklin Museum, Kangaroo Valley



Group on the steps of Lady Franklin's Museum, Ancanthe, Kangaroo Valley, Hobart.
Stereograph by Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1868
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.34



Verso: Group on the steps of the Lady Franklin Museum, Ancanthe, Kangaroo Valley, Hobart.
Stereograph by Thomas J. Nevin ca. 1868
TMAG Ref: Q1994.56.34

No longer available online, this stereograph was catalogued online at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in 2006 with the following details:

TMAG Catalogue (text database):
Ref: Q1994.56.34
ITEM NAME: Photograph:
MEDIUM: sepia salt paper stereoscope,
MAKER: T Nevin [Artist];
TITLE: 'Lady Franklin's Museum, Kangaroo Valley'
DATE: 1870c
DESCRIPTION : Group of people at Lady Franklin's Museum, Kangaroo Valley
INSCRIPTIONS & MARKS: On back in pencil: Mrs A Pedder / and in different hand Lady Franklin's Museum/ KangarooValley and in different hand again best picture.

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Updated October 2020
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