The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery acquired this copy of Thomas J. Nevin's cdv of prisoner John Moran (1874) when it was deposited there in 1983 at the conclusion of an exhibition held at the Port Arthur Heritage site, Tasman Peninsula. This cdv - and another 50 or so - were originally held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, acquired from the estate of convictaria collector John Watt Beattie in the 1930s. He had sourced them from offical prison records deemed government estrays which were either offered at auction or designated for destruction during the Lyons period of government in the 1920s. Instead of being returned to the QVMAG, this cdv of John Moran and the other 50 or so prisoner cdvs were left at the TMAG in Hobart. Some were copied as black and white images for the Archives Office of Tasmania.
Prisoner MORAN, John
TMAG Ref: Q15582
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin, February 1874
Taken at the MPO, Hobart Town Hall
Verso: Prisoner MORAN, John
Inscriptions: "3"
"John Moran per Ly Franklin"
"Taken at Pt Arthur 1874"[sic - incorrect]
TMAG Ref: Q15582
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin, February 1874
Taken at the MPO, Hobart Town Hall
The NLA copy
The National Library of Australia's mounted cdv of prisoner John Moran (1874) is a print from Thomas Nevin's original capture at the one and only sitting with the prisoner which was acquired by the NLA from the QVMAG ca. 1985 (McPhee, personal communication).
NLA CATALOGUE 2004
John Moran, per Ly. [i.e. Lady] Franklin, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture]
Part of collection: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874.
Gunson Collection file 203/7/54.
Title from inscription on reverse.
Inscription: "3"--On reverse.
Also available in an electronic version via the Internet at: https://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an2461247.
Thomas J. Nevin (1842-ca.1922) [i.e. the photographer]
John Moran per Ly [i.e. Lady] Lady Franklin,
Taken at Port Arthur 1874 albumen photograph on carte-de-visite mount; 9.4 x 5.7 cm nla.pic-an24612479
The Archives Office of Tasmania holds this information:
Database No:50512
Moran John 12 Oct 1845 Lady Franklin Norfolk Island To NSW per Florentia.
To Norfolk Island 1836. Soldier 99th Regiment. Tried Sydney May 1841.
POLICE RECORDS
From being "enlarged" with a ticket-of-leave in January 1874, John Moran was in and out of the Hobart Gaol on a regular basis. He was photographed by Thomas J. Nevin on discharge in February 1874 at the Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall; this photo of him was circulated with the warrant in October 1875.
John Moran was granted a Ticket of Leave on 30th January, 1874
John Moran: Discharged 6th February, 1874. TL on Life.
John Moran: Discharged 4th August 1875
John Moran: Arrested 26th October, 1875
John Moran: Discharged 27th October 1875
John Moran: Warrant for arrest 26th November,1875
John Moran: Convicted 4th December, 1875
Source: Tasmania Reports on Crime For Police Information 1871-1875 J. Barnard, Gov’t Printer.
John Moran died from general decay, aged 78 yrs, as a Prisoner of the Crown at the Hobart Gaol on 30th July 1889.
TAHO Records
Name:Moran, John
Record Type:Deaths
Gender:Male
Age:78
Date of death:30 Jul 1889
Registered:Hobart
Registration year:1889
Document ID:
NAME_INDEXES:1235043
ResourceRGD35/1/12 no 681
The QVMAG prints
The National Library of Australia's mounted cdv of prisoner John Moran is a print from Thomas Nevin's original capture at the one and only sitting with the prisoner which was acquired by the NLA from the QVMAG ca. 1985 for an exhibition (McPhee, personal communication). The original uncut sepia print was cleaned of scratches and cracks, and re-photographed as a black and white print by Chris Long at the QVMAG in 1985 for reasons known only to himself since they serve no purpose. The original print taken from Nevin's glass negative of the 1870s was removed from the prisoner's Hobart Gaol rap sheet and collated into one of three panels, forty (40) uncut prints in all, by convictaria collector John Watt Beattie and advertised for sale in his catalogue, 1916. Both the original 1874 print and the 1980s reproduction are held at the QVMAG:
Original uncut print taken from Thomas J. Nevin's glass negative of the 1870s
Black and white print of John Moran, QVMAG 1985
Reproduced at the QVMAG 1985 from T. J. Nevin's original negative
Taken at the MPO, Hobart Town Hall 1874
QVMAG Collection Ref: 1985 p 0163
John Moran was not photographed at Port Arthur, despite the NLA's catalogue entry devised by the cataloguer from the inscription on verso - "Taken at Port Arthur, 1874 ..." - which appears inscribed on the verso of many dozens of these mugshots of Tasmanian prisoners printed in carte-de-visite mounts. The number "3" appears on the verso of this cdv of John Moran, and like all these numbers on either the verso or mount ranging from 1 to more than 300, the sequencing has been devised by copyists to mark several events:
for archiving at the QVMAG decades later;
for exhibition and sale in the 1910s-20s at Beattie's "Port Arthur Museum" in Hobart;
for an exhibition in conjunction with convictaria from the fake hulk Success at the Royal Hotel, Sydney in 1916;
for display at the Mechanics Institute Launceston in 1934;
for exhibitions at the Art Gallery of NSW 1976 and the QVMAG in 1977;
and for display at the Port Arthur Heritage Site in 1983.
The police photograph of John MORAN by T. J. Nevin was taken at the MPO, Hobart Town Hall, between the 2nd and 6th February 1874, and not at the Port Arthur prison. This prisoner was one of three men photographed on that date: Thomas FRANCIS and Thomas SAUNDERS were also discharged and photographed in Hobart by Nevin between 4th-6th February 1874. Thomas Francis' cdv in an oval mount is held at the National Library of Australia, and a print from Nevin's original negative taken of him is held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. Thomas Saunder's cdv is also held at the QVMAG.
Usually four duplicates were made by Nevin from his glass negative at the time of the original capture for police administration records. The 300 or so extant cdvs reprinted in the standard oval mount format that was conventionally used by commercial photographers working in prisons in NSW and Victoria of the 1870s were displayed in the early 1900s by collector John Watt Beattie in his convictaria museum in Hobart. Who else but a curator/archivist would write "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" on the verso of a photograph, unless the image was to be directed at tourists as an artefact of Tasmanian's penal heritage? Not the prison photographer working in situ with government documentation, and as the several copies circulated for police reference were pasted to documents such as the warrant and the prisoner’s criminal rap sheet, inscribing the verso would serve no one; it would not be visible. Likewise, printing the verso with a studio stamp would have been a waste of effort and ink.
The several extant prisoner mugshots in cdv format which do carry T. J. Nevin's government contractor stamp enclosing the Royal Arms insignia (held at the QVMAG and Mitchell Library, NSW) were used to register his copyright, renew his contract, and access his commission. Copyright registration lasted 14 years. Only one generic example was required to register a batch of 100. The majority of prisoner photographs taken by Thomas J. Nevin were not stamped verso as they were intended for police information; they were first and foremost legal instruments used daily for tracking suspects on warrant, for pasting to the prisoner's criminal record sheet on incarceration, and for the discharge of the prisoner taken a fortnight prior to release. Nevin's work extended to exclusive photography for the Municipal and Territorial Police after his appointment in 1876 to the Hobart Town Hall as a civil servant, when the use of his government insignia stamp, which signified his status as government contractor while still operating as a commercial photographer, was no longer necessary. Those prisoner mugshots taken at the Hobart Gaol from 1877 with the assistance of his younger brother Constable John Nevin, a full time salaried employee, were not taken on commission; they were taken and used exclusively for internal prison records and police office documentation.
NLA book publications
Helen Ennis included in this NLA publication Intersections (2004) the cdv of Tasmanian prisoner John Moran from the NLA's collection of 84 photographs of "Port Arthur convicts" with attribution to Thomas J. Nevin. He was correctly assigned as the photographer on accession of the NLA's collection in the 1960s and 1980s.
Helen Ennis, Intersections: Photography, history and the National Library of Australia’s Collection.
Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2004
There is no doubt that the early years of transportation to Tasmania's Port Arthur prison have been the primary focus and fascination for historians. It feeds and feeds off the aggressive promotion of the prison site as the State's key historic attraction. And it has become the convention and norm of writers to corral one or more of these prisoner mugshots within their new texts that deal with those early years. Michael Bogle's publication on convicts (2008), as an example, has Nevin's negative (1875) of convict Charles Rosetta on the front cover, unattributed to Nevin, and wrongly dated to 1917 with attribution to the copyists Beattie & Searle by the NLA cataloguer.
Michael Bogle, Convicts: transportation & Australia
Sydney : Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, c2008
Photos © KLW NFC 2009 ARR
These sorts of publications ignore the fact that the circumstances in which Thomas J. Nevin produced prisoners' mugshots in the mid 1870s were very different from those experienced by transported convicts at imprisoned at Port Arthur in the 1850s; moreover, they ignore the very obvious fact that these photographs taken on arrest and discharge represent old men with 20 more years' experience of felonies and incarceration since their early Port Arthur days, transportees who had become conventional prisoners in and out of a conventional town gaol. This blind spot explains in part why the site of Port Arthur with the date of 1874, embellished with the fantasist creation of a photographer attribution to one of its Commandants (A.H. Boyd) in the 1990s (Chris Long, Warwick Reeder et al), has been assigned across the board to the National Library of Australia's collection under pressure from these writers' errors in printed publications. The mundane reality of these convicts' later prison exploits does not make good tourist copy, and by association nor do the routines of a jobbing photographer, as Thomas Nevin was, employed to produce the prisoner's mugshot. Who can name a prison photographer in any era? No one, because they are not deemed "artists". They remain invisible to the public, without attribution. Anonymity is de rigeur in their job. See also this post with reference to Helen Ennis.
[Above] page 18, Intersections, photograph by Thomas J. Nevin of convict John Moran (1874).
Edwin Barnard, Exiled: The Port Arthur Convict Photographs (NLA 2010)
[Above] page 12. Exiled: The Port Arthur Convict Photographs (NLA 2010)
Thomas FRANCIS was discharged from Port Arthur, per the first notice (below) in the police gazette dated 31st January - 4th February, 1874. Note that no physical details of the prisoner had been recorded by the police up to that date, 4th February 1874, because he had not yet been photographed. A second notice appeared in the police gazette one week later, dated 6th February 1874, which included his age - 62 yrs, height - 5'5" - color of hair - "brown" and distinguishing marks, viz. bullet mark on left leg, bayonet mark on thumb, scar on chin. These details were written and recorded when Thomas J. NEVIN photographed Thomas FRANCIS on that date - 6th February 1874 - at the Office of Inspector of Police, Hobart Town Hall.
NLA CATALOGUE NOTES
nla.pic-vn4269870 PIC P1029/14 LOC Album 935
Thomas Francis, Ly. [i.e. Lady] Franklin 4, taken at Port Arthur, 1874 [picture] 1874. [sic - incorrect]
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]
The National Library of Australia catalogue notes are incorrect. Thomas Francis was photographed by T. J. Nevin, the only photographer and the only commercial photographer contracted to the Municipal Police Office and Prisons Department in the early 1870s to provide the police with mugshots. The photograph was taken at the MPO, Hobart Town Hall, between the 2nd and 6th February 1874, and NOT at the Port Arthur prison. This prisoner was one of three men photographed on that date: John MORAN and Thomas SAUNDERS were also discharged and photographed in Hobart by T. J. NEVIN between 4th-6th February 1874. John Moran's mugshot is held at the National Library of Australia, and a print from Nevin's original negative of John Moran is held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. Thomas Saunders' mugshot is also held at the QVMAG:
Above: Thomas Saunders, photographed on discharge at the MPO Hobart Town Hall by T.J. Nevin on 6th February, 1874. This mounted cdv is held at the QVMAG.
POLICE RECORDS
Above: the first police gazette notice for Thomas Francis (and John Moran), received from Port Arthur and discharged between 31st January and 4th February. No physical details were recorded for either prisoner.
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police, Gov't printer.
Above: the second police gazette notice of Thomas Francis (including John Moran and Thomas Saunders),discharged from the Office of Inspector of Police, Hobart Town, dated 6th February 1874. Full physical details were transcribed and gazetted only after Thomas Francis (and John Moran) reported for discharge, and received an FS discharge - Free in Servitude - in Francis' case; a TL - ticket of leave - in the case of Moran and Saunders. All three men - Thomas Francis, John Moran and Thomas Saunders - were photographed by contractor Thomas J. Nevin at the Office of Inspector of Police, which was located in the Hobart Town Hall no later than the 6th February and no earlier than the 31st January to 4th February 1874, in Hobart, and not at Port Arthur.
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