Tasmanian prisoner portraits from TAHO at Flickr

The Archives Office of Tasmania collection
Online until recently, the Archives Office of Tasmania digitized and displayed 92 copies of the carte-de-visite photographs of Tasmanian convicts held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, originals of which which were exhibited at the QVMAG in the 1970s as the work of Thomas J. Nevin.

Webshots show the online records were captioned "Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin" (see the complete list here) and some were dated 1874 or earlier. In fact, few were taken at Port Arthur, and many were taken over a period of years in the 1870s-1880s. The date and place of the AOT caption reflects the error about Port Arthur as the place where all of these photographs were taken, made by an archivist in the early 1900s, probably by Edward Searle while working in John Watt Beattie at his museum and studio in Hobart between 1911-1916 where three panels of forty prisoner mugshots were offered for sale, among other convict memorabilia. Similarly, the date "1874" does not reflect actual judicial events in the prisoner's criminal career, i.e. whether he was photographed on sentencing, incarceration or discharge. The photographer attribution to Thomas J. Nevin, however, was and still is correct.

The majority - but not all - of the collection of Tasmanian prisoner photographs taken in the 1870s held at the Archives Office of Tasmania are black and white paper copies reproduced ca. 1985 from original cdvs held in the collection at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.

TAHO Commons Collection at Flickr

Tasmanian convict + prison photos, a set by Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office on Flickr (Commons).

See the article on this site about the photograph of prisoner Hugh Cohen and another of Cohen by Nevin at the Mitchell Library SLNSW. The majority of mugshots in this collection were taken from the 1890s to the early 1900s. Some show the same prisoner photographed by Nevin in the 1870s but as a much older re-offender, eg. James Geary, originally photographed in 1874 and again in 1889. In addition to this selection of gaol mugshots on prisoner records , the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office holds over 90 copies and originals of Nevin's prisoner portraits, tagged at the National Library of Australia's Trove service.

Estrays at TAHO with APA citation
Recent 1870s originals uploaded by TAHO (improvements on the black and white copies from the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery) are these, with TAHO's original APA citations:

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "Alfred Doran, probably Albert Dorman, convict transported per Blenheim. Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "George Growsett, convict transported per Lady Montague.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: Prisoner George GROWSETT 1860 and 1873

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "James Harrison, convict transported per Rodney.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: Prisoner James HARRISON

Henry Smith - but unidentified by TAHO
LINC Tasmania APA citation: "Convict, transported per Rodney.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: How misattribution can persist

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "James Smith, Convict transported per John Calvin.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "Robert West, convict transported per Gilmore.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "William Ryan, arrived free per City of Hobart, tried Launceston 1868.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: Prisoner William RYAN wholesale forger at the TMAG

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "Richard Phillips, convict transported per Atlas.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: Prisoner Richard PHILLIPS 1874

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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.

BIOGRAPHY: Professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced large numbers of stereographs and cartes-de-visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Switzerland.

Click here for KEY DATES 1842-1923

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THE MUGSHOTS:Thomas Nevin's extant prisoner identification prints and cartes-de-visite in oval mounts - "mugshots" - were taken between 1871 and 1888. The public collections consists of 350+ estrays from more than 2000 photographs taken of prisoners in Tasmania by Thomas Nevin and his brother Constable John Nevin. The National Library of Australia currently holds 87 photographs, the State Library of NSW holds 13 photographs, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery holds 112 photographs, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery holds more than 50, and the Archives Office of Tasmania holds 10 originals and 100 or so paper copies of the QVMAG collections. A dozen or so are held in Private Collections.

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 to apply the misattribution.

INDIGENOUS NOTICE: lutruwita/Tasmania/Van Diemen's Land (loo-tru-wee-ta) always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

This weblog pays respect to the ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging of the first Australian peoples and acknowledges their continued connection to land, sea and culture as the traditional custodians of this country.

Irish-born Thomas J. Nevin would have been keenly aware that the residence and photographic studio he occupied at No's 138-140 Elizabeth St. Hobart in the 1870s was built on the traditional lands, nipaluna/Hobart, of the palawa people. It is no small irony that today, the very same property, which is renumbered as No. 198 Elizabeth St. Hobart and is occupied by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, has returned to its traditional owners.

Looking east from the corner of Patrick St., the Royal Standard Hotel, 142 Elizabeth St. then T. J. Nevin’s studio and residence, 140-138 Elizabeth St. Hobart, 1870s

We also acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the City of Sydney, and the Ngunawal people of the Australian Capital Territory on whose lands this site is maintained.

PLEASE NOTE: images on this weblog represent deceased people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Viewing such images may cause sadness and distress.

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Tasmanian prisoner portraits from TAHO at Flickr

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Hobart Gaol camera and mugshot books 1891-1901

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