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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.


Albums

Disclaimer: We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of 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 Nevin weblogs and associated sites to apply the misattribution.

PROVENANCE: Background

The majority of the 300 or so extant prisoner identification photos were taken by Thomas J. Nevin at the Supreme Court sittings held once every three months in Hobart, and once every six months in Launceston. In other words, the photographs now held in public institutions were selected some time in the early 1900s by archivists on the basis of the notoreity of the prisoner, often a repeat offender sentenced in every trial to  longer than  two years' incarceration. Prisoners sentenced at the Supreme Court Launceston were photographed on being received at the Hobart Town Gaol, and photographed as well on discharge at the Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall by Thomas Nevin with the assistance of his brother Constable W.J. (Jack or John) Nevin between 1871 and 1886. Nevin's earliest prisoner photographs date from the mid year session of 1871. Many are dated ca. late 1873 and 1874 when prisoners were transferred from the Port Arthur prison to the central city prison, the Hobart Gaol, Campbell St. One copy was pasted to the criminal's record sheet, other copies were circulated to police when the prisoner was transferred from regional and city courts to prison, or when recaptured on warrant, or when discharged.

Several uncut prints from Nevin's original glass negatives, copied probably by John Watt Beattie ca. 1910, are held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Of the 3500 or so prisoner mugshots taken by Thomas Nevin and his brother Constable John Nevin, only 300 or so are accounted for in public archives, libraries and museums. The original vignettes in carte-de-visite format which Nevin made in duplicate for immediate police use of the same man for prison and police records during the criminal's career constitute the majority of extant examples. The QVMAG made and circulated many copies of their holdings to the National Library of Australia, the Archives Office of Tasmania, and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Items from private collections are not viewable here.


SUPREME COURT SITTINGS and TRIALS: a selection by date

Supreme Court sittings Nevin's mugshots

NATIONAL LIBRARY of AUSTRALIA

The NLA acquired originals or duplicates and copies from several sources of their holdings of Tasmanian prisoner photographs by Thomas J. Nevin, as estrays by Dr Neil Gunson in 1962 and from the QVMAG and AOT ca. 1982 which were then accessioned in Nevin's name as "Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874".

Thomas J. Nevin's prisoner photographs at the NLA

Each digitised image from the NLA holdings is listed on this site (84 in all at February 2010). The NLA has NOT digitised the versos, which would be of great assistance in establishing their exact museological provenance. Additional police records sourced from the weekly police gazettes of the day, Tasmania Reports of Crime, Information for Police 1865-1885 (James Barnard, Government Printer) are included with links to full articles in some instances on Thomas J. Nevin's weblog.

PICTURE AUSTRALIA

Picture Australia's digital harvest has a collection of 167 mugshots by Nevin, made up of the NLA Holdings, and the Archives Office of Tasmania Collections, now managed by the State Library of Tasmania.

PictureAustralia Nevin's convicts


QUEEN VICTORIA MUSEUM and ART GALLERY (Tas)

The QVMAG holds both types of images of convicts by Nevin: uncut and unmounted copies from his glass negatives, and vignetted cartes, many of the same image of the men featured in the unmounted negative, and many also held as identical duplicates in the NLA, TMAG, and AOT collections.

These are now online at the QVMAG, viz:
 Your search for 'Nevin' produced 113 image matches

Nevin's mugshots at the QVMAG

Current holdings at the QVMAG are 110 convict cartes, sourced from the Beattie Collection (1930). Many of these original prisoner photographs taken by Nevin in the 1870s were copied by Beattie for sale in his tourist museum in the early 1900s, and copied again by later archivists in Tasmania for circulation to other public institutions.



TASMANIAN MUSEUM and ART GALLERY

The TMAG holds dozens of Nevin's stereographs and 50 or so convict cartes by Nevin which were sourced from the Municipal Police Office, Town Hall Hobart where Nevin was employed on commission from 1872 and in full-time civil service from 1876. Several copies were also sourced from the QVMAG in 1987 with the misattribution to Boyd, the result of the employee's error ( Elspeth Wishart) based on "comments by Chris Long". The TMAG is principally responsible for the A. H. Boyd photographic misattribution.

From Exhibitions and Publications

ARCHIVES OFFICE TASMANIA

The AOT holds originals and copies of Nevin's convict photographs, and other studio portraits taken of government officials in the 1870s.






STATE LIBRARY NSW

Thomas Nevin's collection of 11 convict cartes at the State Library of NSW, Mitchell Collection  includes two cartes attached to death warrants dated 1883 and 1884, and stamped vignettes dating from Supreme Court trials in 1875.

Nevin's Eleven Convict Cartes Mitchell Library NSW

See all albums at Picasa in Nevin's Collections