The Mitchell Library at the State Library of NSW has catalogued eleven prisoner photographs so far which were taken by government contractor Thomas J. Nevin and his younger brother Constable John Nevin at the Hobart Gaol between 1875 and 1884.
All of these men were habitual offenders with long criminal records who spent as much if not more time in gaol as out free in service (FS). These are their mugshots, and typical of the 1000 or so originals and duplicates produced over the decade by Thomas with the assistance of his brother Constable John Nevin (William John aka Jack). The two brothers were required by the Prisons Department and Municipal Police Office to photograph men (but not women) who were arrested, arraigned at the Hobart Supreme Court, incarcerated at the Hobart Gaol, transferred from regional police offices, and discharged from the Mayor's Court and Municipal Police, Hobart Town Hall. In some instances, they photographed dead men walking, those destined to be hanged.
The exact dates on which these men were photographed, some at least twice, can be adduced from their police records published in the weekly police gazettes, called Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1865-1880 (Government Printer, James Barnard), held at the Archives Office of Tasmania. The death warrants which accompany two of these cartes-de-visite mugshots of Sutherland and Stock are held at the Mitchell Library, bound in a volume called Death Warrants V.D.L (Tasmania, Supreme Court C203).
These eleven prisoners provide information about -
- the pose and framing techniques used by Thomas J. Nevin in the mid 1870s, reflective of conventional commercial portraiture
- the transition period between the brothers' commercial portraiture and the regulated official prison photograph, typically a full frontal capture, dating from 1880s
- the archival inscriptions and numbering which date from the library's accession into the collection of David Scott Mitchell, 1907
- the library's contemporary methods of storing, pasting, mounting and cataloguing this collection etc etc
All photography copyright © KLW NFC 2009 ARR.
MOUNTED
Unmounted
Some carry verso T. J. Nevin's Colonial Warrant Royal Arms government stamp (two above); some have handwritten details of the crime and date of arraignment in different hands.
Two of the same man, Francis Shearin (police records show spelling variations and aliases): on left is the booking photograph 1877, on right the sentencing shot, 8 years for murder, taken in July 1878.
Shearin's sentence: Police record in Tasmania Reports of Crime 2nd August 1878
Full frontal, eyes up.
Death Warrants
Booking shot of Henry Stock, executed 1884
Sutherland, full frontal shot, hand-tinted, photographed in the week before his death by hanging, May-June 1883.
RELATED POSTS main weblog
- Nevin's mugshots: the transitional pose and frame
- Nevin's photos of prisoners Sutherland and Stock with death warrant
- Two significant convict cartes + one
- From glass negative to printed carte
- The QVMAG convict photos exhibition 1977
