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Please note: Below each image held at the National Library of Australia is their catalogue batch edit which gives the false impression that all these "convict portraits" were taken because these men were transported convicts per se (i.e before cessation in 1853), and that they might have been photographed as a one-off amateur portfolio by a prison official at the Port Arthur prison in 1874, which they were not. Any reference to the Port Arthur prison official A. H. Boyd on the NLA catalogue records is an error, a PARASITIC ATTRIBUTION with no basis in fact. The men in these images were photographed in the 1870s-1880s because they were repeatedly sentenced as habitual offenders whose mugshots were taken on arrest, trial, arraignment, incarceration and/or discharge by police and prisons photographer T. J. Nevin at the Supreme Court and adjoining Hobart Gaol with his brother Constable John Nevin, and at the Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall. The Nevin brothers photographed more than 3000 prisoners, the bulk now lost or destroyed. These extant mugshots are random estrays salvaged or selected on the basis of notoreity in the early 1900s from the Supreme Court trial registers, the Habitual Criminals Registers, warrant forms, and police gazettes records of the 1870s-80s. The earliest date from 1871. The police records are sourced from the weekly police gazettes which were called (until 1884) Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1871-1885. J. Barnard, Gov't Printer.


Monday, January 19, 2009

Forster, William or Charles Brown



nla.pic-vn4269869 PIC P1029/13 LOC Album 935 William Forster, per Equestrian 1, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture] 1874. 1 photograph on carte-de-visite mount : albumen ; 9.4 x 5.6 cm. on mount 10.5 x 6.3 cm. Part of Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874 [picture]

Also at Archives Office of Tasmania

From Webshots of Nevin's convicts at Archives Tasmania

Please note: this convict's transported record does not match his age. His alias was William Forster, and his real name when convicted on 16th December 1871 was Charles Brown, native of Tasmania, aged 21 yrs.

POLICE RECORDS



William Forster suspected, 23 June 1871



Charles Brown as William Forster aged 21 yrs convicted 16th December 1871



Warrant for Charles Brown (aka Wm Forster), aged 22 yrs, 1st August 1873



Charles Brown (aka Wm Forster), aged 22 yrs, absconded 28th November 1873



Charles Brown (aka Wm Forster) "surrendered himself at the Gaol, Hobart Town", 9th January 1874, when Nevin photographed him.

Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime 1871-1875 Gov't Printer

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First published on Monday, January 19, 2009
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