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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.


Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Cavanagh, Henry



NLA Catalogue full record (as at April 17, 2009)

Henry Cavanagh at Port Arthur, Tasmania, 1874 [picture]
Title
Henry Cavanagh at Port Arthur, Tasmania, 1874 [picture]
Date 1874.
Extent 1 albumen print : sepia toned; 10.5 x 6.5 cm.
Context Part of Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874 [picture]
Series * Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874.
Biography Henry Cavanagh was a convict at Port Arthur, Tasmania, 1874.
Notes Condition: Fair, some foxing.
Title devised by cataloguer.
"306 Henry Cavanagh Native Taken at Port Arthur 1874."--In ink on verso.
Convicts confidential Gunson collection.
Part of collection: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874.
NLA neg. 1998.
Also available in an electronic version via the Internet at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn3660505
Subject
* Cavanagh, Henry -- Portraits.
* Convicts -- Tasmania -- Port Arthur -- Portraits.
Occupation
* Prisoners.
Identifier
nla.pic-vn3660505
Bib id
vn3660505
Call number(s)
* P1029/76 LOC Album 935 *

Henry Cavanagh was not sent to Port Arthur, as the NLA Catalogue notes claim. His name does not appear in the House of Assembly Journals, Nominal Return of Prisoners sent to Port Arthur since its transfer to Colonial Government in 1871, tabled in Parliament on 11th June, 1873. He was discharged before that date, on the 14th June 1872 after sentencing of one month in Hobart, and arraigned in Launceston nine months later, on the 3rd September 1873. He was received at the Hobart Gaol, sentenced to 6 years, and photographed there on 17th September 1873 by Nevin.

The numbering on the verso of this carte, according to the NLA notes is "306". This is an archivist's number which could date from ca 1916 sourced from Beattie's Museum, or from the 1960s with the Gunson Collection acquisition by the NLA, or from the 1930s when the QVMAG acquired Beattie's Collection, or from the 1980s when the QVMAG copied and distributed more than 70 cartes to the NLA, AOT, TMAG etc.

POLICE RECORDS



Cavanagh discharged 14 June 1872



Henry Cavanagh, aged 19 yrs, arraigned 3 September 1873 and sentenced to 6 years for stealing a posted letter. He was admitted to the Hobart Gaol (Campbell St Gaol) and photographed by Nevin on 17th September 1873.

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First published on Wednesday, April 08, 2009
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