Prisoner John NORMAN or MORRISON

FALSIFICATION of LIBRARY RECORDS



This young prisoner was originally identified as John Morrison in the National Library of Australia's catalogue, eg. for the NLA exhibition "In a New Light: Australian Photography 1850s-1930s", 9 Oct. 03-26 Jan. 2004, and renamed as John Norman in 2013.

POLICE RECORDS



John Norman, suspected of theft, notice of 14 October 1881, Tasmania Reports of Crime (police gazette)



John Norman, committed for trial for house-breaking, notice of 28 December 1883, Tasmania Reports of Crime (police gazette)

Although the name has changed for the subject of the photograph, the National Library's incorrect catalogue entry still retains the impossible photographer attribution to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd, and the erroneous place of incarceration as Port Arthur, per these notes:

Title John Norman, native born and sentenced for 12 months, age 19, taken at Port Arthur, Tasmania, 1884 Other Creators Boyd, A. H. (Aldolarius [sic]Humphrey), 1829-1891.(incorrect information) Part of collection: Convict portraits, Port Arthur, 1874. Gunson Collection file 203/​7/​54. Dated from rectangular shape and dates of similar photographs in collection. Sentenced of 12 months on 5 February 1884. Also available in an electronic version via the Internet at: http:/​/​nla.gov.au/​nla.pic-an24612677. Exhibited: "In a New Light: Australian Photography 1850s-1930s", National Library of Australia, 9 Oct. 03-26 Jan. 04

This young locally-born ("native") 19 year old John Morrison or John Norman was photographed on being received at the Hobart Gaol on February 16, 1884 by Constable John Nevin. The National Library has included the photograph among the collection of the earlier 1874 convict photographs taken by government contractor Thomas J. Nevin, and retained the prison location as Port Arthur despite the simple fact that in 1874 the prisoner would have been only 9 years old, and clearly John Norman is not a child in his photograph. As for the place of imprisonment, he could not have been imprisoned to serve his 12 month sentence at the Port Arthur prison because it was well and truly closed by 1877, and by 1884 it was in ruins.

Not simply content with misleading the public with this sort of catalogue entry, the NLA has compromised Thomas J. Nevin's former sole and correct attribution from accession in the 1980s until 2007 for this collection of Tasmanian prisoner mugshots with a parasitic misattribution to the non-photographer and retired Port Arthur prison official A. H. Boyd, the result of deliberate falsification by individuals (eg the aspirationally pathetic Julia Clark) seeking appropriation and self-promotion.

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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.