Prisoner James FOLEY

National Library of Australia copy
Government contractor Thomas J. Nevin photographed prisoner James Foley in one sitting, on the prisoner's discharge in October 1874 from the Hobart Gaol. This cdv is the mounted original taken in 1874 by Nevin, donated to the NLA in the 1960s as part of the Gunson collection of government estrays.



Prisoner James FOLEY
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)

 Notes from the NLA Catalogue
Part of collection: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874.
Gunson Collection file 203/7/54.
James Foley, per Ld. [i.e. Lord] Dalhousie, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture]
Title from inscription on reverse.
Inscription: title and "78"--In ink on reverse.
Condition: Slight foxing.
Also available online https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-142916210

Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery copy
This black and white copy (below) of Thomas J. Nevin's original mugshot of James Foley taken in October 1874 on discharge from the Hobart Gaol was created at the QVMAG in 1985 from a sepia duplicate made by Nevin from his single original capture on glass. The 1870s duplicate was collected from government estrays in Hobart by convictarian John Watt Beattie in the 1900s and donated to the QVMAG as part of Beattie's estate in the 1930s. The number on the versos of both copies - "78"- was inscribed at the same time as the phrase "Taken at Port Arthur 1874", probably by Beattie in the early 1900s for display at his museum in Hobart of Port Arthur convictaria. As with the majority of these photographs of Tasmanian prisoners (or "convicts" as they are called in tourism discourse) which survive, they were produced on contract by T. J. Nevin in the 1870s at Hobart and not at Port Arthur. The additional number on the recto of the QVMAG copy - "96" - was added in 1983 when this copy - together with several dozen others similarly numbered in sequence on recto - was removed from the QVMAG in Launceston to be displayed at an exhibition held at the Port Arthur Heritage Site, 1983-1984.



Prisoner James Foley (black and white copy created at the QVMAG 1985)
Ref: QVMAG 1985_p_0105. Numbered recto "96"
Photographer Thomas J. Nevin 1874



Verso: Prisoner James Foley (black and white copy created at the QVMAG 1985)
Ref: QVMAG 1985_p_0105. Numbered recto "96"
Photographer Thomas J. Nevin 1874

Archives Office of Tasmania copy
A paper copy also from the b&w cdv held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery was online at the Archives of Tasmania in 2005.



Webshot: Archives Office Tasmania PH30/1/3208
Caption: "James Foley, convict transported per Lord Dalhousie. Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin".

Police Records: James Foley 1874-75



James Foley, native place Cork (Ireland) was tried at the Supreme Court Hobart on 5th September 1865 for larceny and prison offences, sentenced to 9 years. He was 43 yrs old when he was discharged on 21st October 1874, and photographed by T. J. Nevin on discharge. Within months of discharge, he was convicted in Launceston again of larceny, using an alias Sullivan, his trade listed as sweep, his age bumped up to 50 yrs old.



James Foley as Sullivan was convicted at Launceston to 6 months for larceny on 11th September 1875 and received once more at the Hobart Gaol. His photograph by T. J. Nevin taken in 1874 was duplicated from the Gaol Photo Book for inclusion on his rap sheet.

First published on
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Australia's FIRST MUGSHOTS

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 solely 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 government contractor, 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 when appearing at The Mayor's Court. The Nevin brothers produced over a thousand originals and duplicates of Tasmanian prisoners, the bulk now lost or destroyed. The three hundred extant mugshots were the random estrays salvaged - and reproduced in many instances- for sale at Beattie's local convictaria museum in Hobart and at interstate exhibitions associated with the fake convict ship Success in the early 1900s. The mugshots were selected on the basis of the prisoner's notoriety from the Supreme Court trial registers (Rough Calendar), the Habitual Criminals Registers (Gaol Photo Books), warrant forms, and police gazettes records of the 1870s-1880s. The earliest taken on government contract by T. J. Nevin date from 1872. The police records sourced here are from the weekly police gazettes which were called (until 1884) Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1871-1885. J. Barnard, Gov't Printer.