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Prisoner Philip BURTON



Mugshot of prisoner Philip BURTON
Taken 1873-1879 Hobart Gaol Campbell St.
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
TMAG Ref: Q15595

This is one of two extant duplicate photographs in carte-de-visite format produced by Thomas Nevin from his original glass negative taken of prisoner Philip Burton in September 1873. This cdv was originally held in the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, acquired from John Watt Beattie's estate in the 1930s. When the QVMAG typed out a list of their collection in the 1990s, it was numbered as "131" and shown as missing from their collection, along with 126 more (one hundred and twenty-seven in total missing from a list of 199). It was returned - not to the QVMAG but to the TMAG - after being exhibited at the Port Arthur heritage site in 1983. The recto number was applied by the QVMAG, but the verso number "290" was applied ca. 1915 when exhibited and offered for sale by John Watt Beattie at his museum in Hobart.



Verso: CDV of prisoner Philip BURTON taken 1873-1879 Hobart Gaol Campbell St.
Photo numbered "131" on recto and "290" on verso
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
TMAG Ref: Q15595

The National Library of Australia holds a duplicate (from Nevin's original glass negative) of this same photograph, donated in the 1960s by Neill Gunson from government estrays (Sprod papers NLA MS 2320, 1964). This cdv bears no numbering on the front but two sequential numbers on verso, "289" and "290", an indication that they were a pair of cdvs which was split up and distributed from the original acquisition of Beattie's collection at QVMAG after 1930.



CDV of prisoner Philip BURTON taken 1873-1879 Hobart Gaol Campbell St.
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
Photographed at the NLA on 16th December 2016
Photo © KLW NFC 2016 ARR. Watermarked.



Verso: CDV of prisoner Philip BURTON taken 1873-1879 Hobart Gaol Campbell St.
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin
Photographed at the NLA on 16th December 2016
Photo © KLW NFC 2016 ARR. Watermarked

NLA CATALOGUE NOTES


Transportation Records
Name: Burton, Phillip
Record Type: Convicts
Departure date: 13 May 1845
Departure port: Downs
Ship: David Malcolm
Voyage number: 367
Remarks: Off Norfolk Island per Tory May 1847
Index number: 9531
Record ID: NAME_INDEXES:1377810
Archives Office of Tasmania

Police Records
Philip Burton was 43yrs old when he was sentenced to six years for assault and robbery in 1868.



Philip Burton was charged on 14th April 1864 for assault and robbery, sentenced to 6 years, and discharged on 11th November 1868.

Within 18 months, Burton was remanded for breaking and entering.



Source: Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 - 1899) Thu 11 Aug 1870 Page 5 POLICE COURT.

TRANSCRIPT
POLICE COURT.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 9.
(Before T. L Mason, Esq., P.M.)
Burglary.-William Bishop and Philip Burton were charged by Detective-Sergeant Wilson with, on the night of the 6th August, feloniously and burglariously breaking and entering the shop of John Cartledge and Son, and stealing therein a quantity of tobacco and a bag. The prisoners were remanded for a week....
In 1873 he was sentenced to another lengthy term. once again for breaking and entering.



Source: Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 - 1899) Sat 30 Aug 1873 Page 3 THE RECORDER'S COURT.

TRANSCRIPT
Philip Burton charged with burglariously breaking and entering the dwelling of Daniel Webb, of Cleveland on the 3rd August, and stealing twelve striped shirts, and 2lbs of tobacco, the property of F. A. Padfield, of Campbell Town.
The Mercury gave a fuller account of how Philip Burton evaded a charge of burglary by dropping the bundle he had stolen from Padfield's store before being apprehended by Constable Houghton, pleading guilty in court to the lesser charge of "receiving".



Source: The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954) Wed 3 Sep 1873 Page 3 RECORDER'S COURT, LAUNCESTON.





Source: The Tasmanian (Launceston, Tas. : 1871 - 1879) Sat 6 Sep 1873 Page 3 RECORDER'S COURT, LAUNCESTON.

Philip Burton was sentenced to 8 years. He was relocated from the Launceston Court to the Hobart Gaol together with the two other prisoners with lengthy sentences arraigned in this same session - William Burley or Burleigh, 8 years, and Henry Cavanagh, 6 years, All three were photographed on arrival at the Hobart Gaol by Thomas J. Nevin on the 17th September 1873:



Prisoner William Burley photographed September 1873 Hobart Gaol
QVMAG Ref: 1985_p_0074
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin



Prisoner Henry Cavanagh photographed September 1873 Hobart Gaol
NLA Call Number PIC Album 935 P1029/76
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin.

Henry Cavanagh was not sent to Port Arthur, as the verso transcription claims. His name does not appear in the House of Assembly Journals, Nominal Return of Prisoners sent to Port Arthur since its transfer to Colonial Government in 1871, tabled in Parliament on 11th June, 1873. He was discharged before that date, on the 14th June 1872 after sentencing of one month in Hobart, and arraigned in Launceston nine months later, on the 3rd September 1873. He was received at the Hobart Gaol, sentenced to 6 years, and photographed there on 17th September 1873 by T. J. Nevin.

The numbering on the verso of this carte-de-visite, according to the NLA notes is "306". This is an archivist's number which would date from ca 1916 when sourced from Beattie's Museum for the travelling exhibition on board the convict hulk, Success. The transcription "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" was added at that time to encourage local and intercolonial tourism to the ruins of the Port Arthur prison site. More numbering was added in 1938 when the QVMAG exhibited more of these photographs from their acquisition of Beattie's collection, perpetuating the spin for the tourist that the men in these photographs were "Port Arthur convicts" rather than ordinary habitual criminals which was the mundane reality when they were photographed at the Hobart Gaol on arrest, sentencing and discharge. Further numbering on these CDVs dates from the 1960s with the donation of 87 CDVs of Tasmanian prisoners by Neill Gunson from Benevolent Society estrays to the National Library of Australia, and more numbering again appeared on both front and back of these CDV mugshots when the QVMAG broke up the Beattie collection and distributed more than 70 (seventy) for exhibitions in the 1980s at Port Arthur, and the National Portrait Gallery Canberra. The majority of these copies and duplicates from the QVMAG's collection of Nevin's original glass negatives taken in the 1870s were returned to the TMAG; many were copied for the Archives Office of Tasmania, and some surfaced in private collections.

Philip Burton was discharged from the Hobart Gaol on 5th February, 1879.



Thomas Harper was discharged the same day as Philip Burton, on 5th February 1879 when both prisoners were photographed again prior to discharge. Thomas Harper testified against a fellow prisoner, Joseph James Cooper, reported in the press in February 1879. This is Cooper's mugshot, taken by Nevin in March 1879; Thomas Harper's mugshots is also extant (TAHO GD67-1)



Joseph James Cooper, photographed by T. J. Nevin on Cooper's arrest, unshaven, in the grey uniform he wore when brought up from the gaol for his arraignment at the Supreme Court on 4th March 1879, on the charge of forgery. Source: KLW NFC Group 2015 and the Port Arthur Historic Site Resource Centre.

FORGING AND UTTERING. - Joseph James Cooper and Charles Fyshe, were brought from the gaol in the Government clothing, the former charged with having on the 29th day of January, uttered a forged order for £58 16s, with intent to defraud, and the latter with having forged an order for £65 10s 6d with a similar intent. The facts of this case have already been made public, the prisoner Cooper, who was employed in the Botanical Gardens, having taken an expedition to town in the afternoon of the day mentioned, and passed the forged order on Mr. Robb, the sadler, of Elizabeth-street. He also endeavoured to pass the other order at Mr. Walch's shop. The greater part of the evidence against the prisoners was taken on Friday last. Cooper yesterday again cross-examined the witnesses as to matters of detail, and incautiously evinced a knowledge of the interior of Colonel St. Hill's house, that was startling. The following additional evidence was taken. Thomas Harper, a fellow prisoner of Cooper's who lent him the pair of spectacles, on the day he went to town...read the article here from the Mercury, 20th February 1879.

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A glaring fraud: Joseph James COOPER aka the "Artful Dodger" 1875-1889

PRISON CLOTHING Hobart Gaol 1870s-1880s
JOSEPH JAMES COOPER prisoner

Fashions in prison uniforms at the Hobart Gaol in the 1870's varied according to the class of criminal, his trade or job, and the season. Thomas J. Nevin photographed prisoners William Smith and James Mullins at the Hobart Gaol in July 1875 wearing the grey uniform and leathern caps for police records. A visitor to the gaol in July 1882 noted the grey jacket and leather caps of the old hands, and the yellow and black uniforms worn by prisoners working in gangs at large in the community. The prisoner in these three photographs, Joseph James Cooper, wore three different uniforms on the three different occasions while under sentence: in 1875 for burglary; in 1879 for forgery and uttering; and in 1889 for arson.



Above: three mugshots of prisoner Joseph James Cooper 1875-1889.

Extreme left: photographed by T. J. Nevin at the Hobart Gaol on 5th August 1875 on Cooper's assignment to the work gang at the Royal Botanical Gardens, wearing the distinct uniform of yellow and grey which easily identified prisoners under sentence working in the community.

Middle: photographed by T. J. Nevin on Cooper's arrest, unshaven, in the grey uniform he wore when brought up from the gaol for his arraignment at the Supreme Court on 4th March 1879, on the charge of forgery.

Extreme right: photographed by Constable John Nevin at the Hobart Gaol on 13th June 1889-1890 when Cooper was sentenced to life imprisonment for arson at Launceston, and returned to the Hobart Gaol.



Front and verso of Joseph James Cooper's prisoner rap sheet with three mugshots 1875-1889
Source: KLW NFC Group 2015 and the Port Arthur Historic Site Resource Centre.

NB: Although the Port Arthur Historic Site holds this record, and even displayed it online as a banner on their Resource Centre page at one point (2015), this prisoner Joseph James Cooper spent less than four months at Port Arthur from May to August 1875. He was never photographed at Port Arthur at any time from his first conviction in 1875. The same can be said of the many prisoners whose photographs were recently mounted on a lightbox wall there, and with the doubly misleading photographic attribution to their former Commandant at the prison, A. H. Boyd (1871-1873) who was not a photographer by any definition of the term. As a closed, insulated and fictive narrative of Tasmanian criminal history presented to tourists, this sort of deliberate falsification only serves to magnify the several deceptions of dark tourism played out at the Port Arthur penal heritage theme park, and at the expense of ordinary facts: that most if not all the photographs of those prisoners displayed on the wall were taken at the Hobart Gaol in Campbell St. Hobart and not at Port Arthur in the 1870s, and they were taken by the government contractor, commercial photographer and civil servant Thomas J. Nevin.

1875: Burglary & feloniously receiving
Joseph James Cooper was working as a porter at Mr Bidencope's shop and clothing factory when he was arrested for burglary at the factory in 1875. He was born to carpenter Elijah Cooper and wife Susannah in Hobart on 6th November 1853 and had no prior convictions, He was arraigned at the Supreme Court, Hobart, on 11th May, sentenced to five years, imprisoned at the Hobart Gaol until the 29th May 1875 when he was sent to the Port Arthur prison, 60 kms south of Hobart. Within four months, he was sent back to the Hobart Gaol, on 5th August 1875,  and photographed in the parti-coloured prison uniform of yellow and grey by Thomas J. Nevin prior to assignment in a work gang at the Royal Botanical Gardens on the Queen's Domain.




Above: police gazette notice of Joseph James Cooper's arraignment, 11th May 1875.
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police, J. Barnard, Gov't printer

Below: Cooper's record of earnings May -August 1875 and transfer from Port Arthur to the Hobart Gaol on 5th August 1875.
Source: Archives Office Tasmania NAME_INDEXES:1383204



Name: Cooper, James Joseph
Record Type: Convicts
Remarks: Born Tasmania. Tried Hobart
Index number: 14757
Record ID: NAME_INDEXES:1383204
https://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON94-1-2,133,101,F,60



Convict uniform and two caps 1830–1849
leather cap 15.0 x 10.8 x 27.5cm
knitted woollen cap 19.0 x 20.5 x 20.5cm
woollen trousers 107.0 x 51.0cm
woollen jacket 76.0cm (length)
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an6393471
National Library of Australia

1879: Absconding and forgery



James Joseph Cooper, absconded, and arrested by Constable Mitchell
Police gazette notice of 21 January 1879.

TRANSCRIPT
ABSCONDED: -
On the 29th instant, from the Gang employed at the Royal Society's Gardens, Queen's Domain, whilst undergoing a sentence of 5 years passed on him at Hobart Town on 11th May, 1875, for feloniously receiving.
James Joseph Cooper, native of Tasmania, 25 years of age, 5 feet 5 inches high, fresh complexion, medium head, brown hair, no whiskers, round visage, low forehead, light brown eyebrows, light hazel eyes (small), long thin nose, medium mouth, small chin, a labourer.
Since arrested by Constable Mitchell, Government House, and charged with uttering a forged order for £58 16s 8d., with intent to defraud James Robb of Hobart Town.

When Cooper was arrested, he had grown a beard. He was photographed by Thomas J. Nevin at the watch house on arrest, still unshaven, dressed now in the plain summer prison uniform.

Forgery and Uttering 20th February 1879
Joseph James Cooper and his accomplice, compositor Charles Fyshe whose handwriting was identified on the forged cheques presented by Cooper at Messrs Sadler's and Walch's shops, were brought into the court from the Hobart Gaol wearing prison grey.



Joseph James Cooper in court in grey uniform (see the report of 30th January 1879)
The Mercury 20th February 1879

TRANSCRIPT
FORGING AND UTTERING. - Joseph James Cooper and Charles Fyshe, were brought from the gaol in the Government clothing, the former charged with having on the 29th day of January, uttered a forged order for £58 16s, with intent to defraud, and the latter with having forged an order for £65 10s 6d with a similar intent. The facts of this case have already been made public, the prisoner Cooper, who was employed in the Botanical Gardens, having taken an expedition to town in the afternoon of the day mentioned, and passed the forged order on Mr. Robb, the sadler, of Elizabeth-street. He also endeavoured to pass the other order at Mr. Walch's shop. The greater part of the evidence against the prisoners was taken on Friday last. Cooper yesterday again cross-examined the witnesses as to matters of detail, and incautiously evinced a knowledge of the interior of Colonel St. Hill's house, that was startling.
The following additional evidence was taken. Thomas Harper, a fellow prisoner of Cooper's who lent him the pair of spectacles, on the day he went to town; Constable Waller of the Rural Police, who found the spectacles in the same place as the clothes, but on the next day, and Richard Long, a servant of Colonel St. Hill's, from whom the clothes were stolen on 22nd January, and who identified them as his property in Court.
Mr. Superintendent Propsting was sworn, and deposed that a message had been sent to him from the gaol that morning that Fyshe wanted to speak to him. Fyshe was brought to the watch-house, and there owned to having filled up the bodies of the cheques at the suggestion of Cooper, who told him that Mr. George Guest was his uncle and had monies belonging to him, more than would cover the amounts of the cheques. This statement was not made in the hearing or presence of Cooper. Fyshe further stated that he did not know he was doing wrong, and only wrote the cheques to oblige Cooper. No inducement or threat was held out to Fyshe to elicit this statement.
The prisoners were then committed to take their trial at the next Criminal Sessions.

"A  Glaring Fraud" 30th January 1879
The Mercury reporters had a field day with this case. In this article of 30th January 1879, every detail of the the case was recounted, mostly of the events from accounts by Cooper's victims. Praise was given to Detective John Connor's mental agility in unravelling the clues which led to Cooper's eventual arrest by Constable Mitchell at Government House.



etc etc etc. finishing with this accolade to Det. John Connor:
The greatest credit is due to Detective Connor and Constable Anderson for their exertions in endeavouring to arrest the man, and for their sakes it is to be regretted that they were not successful. It is very probable that Cooper will be brought up at the Police Court this morning.


Source: A Glaring Fraud. (1879, January 30).
Tribune (Hobart, Tas. : 1876 - 1879), p. 2.
https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201728444

"The Artful Dodger" 31st January 1879
For reason best known to the writer of this short notice, Joseph James Cooper was likened to Charles Dickens' character, the Artful Dodger, from his greatly loved novel, Oliver Twist, although Cooper was no juvenile pickpocket. The press persisted with the nickname "the Artful Dodger" until March when the excitement finally abated on Cooper's sentence of a further ten years.



Joseph James Cooper was brought from the Hobart Gaol to court wearing the grey prison uniform.
The Mercury, 31st January 1879

TRANSCRIPT
THE ARTFUL DODGER. - James Joseph Cooper, who said he was a native of the colony, was brought up in prison grey, charge pro forma, with having on the 29th instant, feloniously uttered a forged order for payment of £58 16s 8d., with intent to defraud, and remanded till February 7.



These later photographs of Joseph James Cooper, one pictured with a beard, and the third, pictured completely shaved of hair and whiskers, were reprinted several times from the original negatives produced at the Hobart Gaol by the Nevin brothers per police regulations. The portable fold-up rap sheet with copies currently held at the Port Arthur Historic Site Resource Centre was acquired there most probably as an historic artefact from Radcliffe's convictaria shop and museum at Port Arthur in the 1920s-30s, where it was displayed purely in the interests of tourism. The other two copies of the same photographs on the black and white rap sheet were pasted onto the document and bound into book-form at the Sheriff's Office, Hobart Gaol, now held at the Archives Office, Tasmania. The central police records registry, the Municipal Police Office at the Hobart Town Hall also kept additional compilations of numbered prisoner mugshots in PHOTO BOOKS, referenced sometimes as such on the prisoner's rap sheet. The first of these three mugshots of Joseph James Cooper wearing the yellow and grey prison uniform, which is attached with a rusty pin to the Port Arthur document, was sourced as an estray from the Municipal Police Office, Town Hall. It was taken in 1875 by Thomas J. Nevin on commission and mounted as a carte-de-visite within the conventions of commercial studio portraiture. It too was probably sourced from Radcliffe who bought such items at auctions, eg. see Beattie's catalogue 1916.

POLICE GAZETTE: 4th March 1879



Police gazette notice: James Joseph Cooper was arraigned in the Supreme Court Hobart on 4th March 1879. Described as 25 years old, native (locally born), under sentence for forgery and uttering, sentenced to ten years.



Page 73, Supreme Court Rough Calendar, 5 March 1879:
First entry: John James Cooper, under sentence for 5 yrs, sentenced to 10 yrs.
Archives Office Tasmania Supreme Court GD70-1-1 1870-82

Attorney-General Giblin prevaricates 6th March 1879
Attorney-General W. R. GIBLIN acted for Cooper's defence, attempting to shift blame to the overseer of the gang in charge of Cooper and the other prisoners under sentence, for which His Honor admonished him to confine the defence to the facts.



Joseph James Cooper and Chas Fyshe plead in court.
The Mercury 6th March 1879

TRANSCRIPT
FORGERY. Joseph Jno. Cooper and Chas. Fyshe were charged with having forged, on the 29th January, a cheque for the payment of money. In a second count Cooper was charged with uttering. Plea, not guilty.
Jury-Messrs. G. Morgan (foreman), E. Ramberg, B. W. Barber, W. A. Weymouth, Chas. Harris, the younger, Jas, Genge, Thos. Goldsmith, J. M. Hammett, J. W. Reynolds, A. Nicholls, Jno. Keogh, W. Webster.
C. H. T. Marzetti, and A. Pearse, were challenged by the Crown, and H. J. Marsh, and Lewis Luckman were challenged by the prisoners.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL detailed the circumstances of the case, and spoke of it as a cunningly devised scheme for fraud. The learned gentleman was proceeding to refer to the question of blame of the authorities for permitting the state of things revealed by this case, but said, on enquiry into the circumstances, it was found that no blame could be attached except to the overseer, who had charge of the prisoners who were under sentence at the gaol and were employed in a gang at the Royal Society's Gardens, Queen's Domain.
His Honor said that was not the question here, and the learned counsel had better confine himself to the facts of the information.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL then proceeded with the evidence, the principal part of which has already been published in The Mercury.
James Robb proved that on the day in question, the prisoner Cooper (dressed as a civilian and wearing spectacles) made some purchases of saddlery at his shop in Elizabeth streeet, in the name of Joseph St. James, of Sorell, and paid him a cheque on the Bank of Van Diemen's Land for £58 16s. 8d., purporting to be drawn by George Guest, on which Mr. Robb gave him in change the difference of £19. Charles Wood, cabdriver, proved that Cooper hired his cab, and told him to drive him out to the further end of the Royal Society's Gardens .... [etc]



1889: Arson & life imprisonment
Joseph James Cooper committed numerous offences and misdemeanours while in prison. He was released to freedom in 1886 and thereafter used aliases, whether as James Cooper rather than Joseph Cooper, as Keith Cooper and as Keith Roydon until arrested as Roydon on charges of arson. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Supreme Court, Launceston on 13th June 1889. Returned once more to the Hobart Gaol in 1890, he was shaved and photographed by Thomas Nevin's brother Constable John Nevin. His trade was listed as "tailor". Cooper committed further offences every year until sent to the Hospital for the Insane at New Norfolk on 19th February 1898 where he most likely died.



Source: "Australia, Tasmania, Miscellaneous Records, 1829-1961," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVBD-SFKS , James Joseph Or Keith Cooper Or Roydon, 13 Jun 1889; citing Imprisonment, Tasmania, Australia, p. 3, Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Hobart.



Hospital of the Insane New Norfolk
W. Little Photo ca. 1900
Archives Office Tasmania Ref: PH30-1-5093

This sad progression from a young man with a future to degradation of a life in the prison system and eventual hospitalisation in the New Norfolk asylum began here for Joseph James Cooper as a porter at Bidencope's hat factory in 1875:



"WHERE THE GOOD HATS ARE"
J. Bidencope & Son, Murray St Hobart
Post card 1911
Copyright Aussie Mobs at Flickr

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Thomas Nevin and Frederick Stops, right-hand man to the A-G

Photographs and records 1870s-1880s of Tasmanian prisoners
Frederick STOPS, Emily TILLEY and descendants
Exhibitions and publications: T. J. NEVIN 1860s



Frederick Stops 1894
Photograph - Mr F. Stops, Tasmanian Exhibition, 1894-5
Season Ticket Holder - 4 Patrick Street
TAHO Ref: ADRI: NS738-1-2307
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania

Thomas Nevin's photograph of Melville Street under snow
Frederick Stops was a widower when he married Emily Tilley on 10th July 1867, his occupation listed then simply as Clerk. On 29th July 1868 when he registered the birth of his daughter Emily Frederica to his wife Emily Stops nee Tilley at Hobart, his occupation was listed as Clerk to Attorney-General . His son William Joshua Tilley Stops (W. J. T. Stops), who was born two years later on 26th May 1870, would become the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tasmania and the owner of the photograph of "Melville St under snow" taken by Thomas Nevin in 1868.



Marriage of Frederick Stops and Emily Tilley, 
St David's Church, 10 July 1867.
Witnesses were Fanny Pybus, Emily R. Wise, Fred W. Wise, and Josiah Pocock
TAHO Ref: NAME_INDEXES: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/NamesIndex/870876



Last entry on page, 26th June 1868:
Birth of Emily Frederica to Emily Stops nee Tilley and Frederick Stops, Clerk to Attorney-General
TAHO Ref: NAME_INDEXES: https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/NamesIndex/971690

Frederick Stops and photographer Thomas Nevin were well acquainted for several reasons, the first being the dissolution of Thomas Nevin's partnership with Robert Smith operating as the firm "Nevin & Smith" in February 1868 which was underwritten by Frederick Stops' employer and Nevin's family solicitor, the Hon. W R. Giblin, Attorney-General.



Dissolution notice published in the Mercury on 26 February 1868 of the partnership between Robert Smith and Thomas Nevin. William Robert Giblin, later Attorney-General and Premier, was Thomas Nevin's solicitor and witness.

The second reason was their work on prisoner records. Thomas Nevin was granted government contracts with the Land and Survey Department in the same year, 1868 as his partnership with Robert Smith was dissolved by the Hon. W. R. Giblin. He commenced the systematic photographing of prisoners for Attorney-General W. R. Giblin in February 1872, assisted by Frederick Stops in his capacity as the Clerk to the A-G, (see William Clemo's prison record below). Thomas Nevin also worked with solicitor John Woodcock Graves jnr, and barrister Robert Byron Miller in the Supreme Court and Mayor's Court, Hobart Town Hall.

A third reason was more personal. When Frederick Stops married Emily Tilley on 10th July, 1867 at St David's, Hobart, their witnesses included Josiah Pocock, the brother of Rachael Day nee Pocock, She died in 1857 of consumption, leaving a widower, master mariner Captain James Day and two daughters, Mary Sophia Day (b. 1853) and Elizabeth Rachel Day (b. 1847). By July 1868, Thomas Nevin was courting Elizabeth Rachel Day, and would have counted her uncle Josiah Pocock and Frederick Stops among their circle of friends by the time they married in July 1871. Whatever it was about July in Hobart that was so favoured by this generation, it cannot have been a wish for warm weather.

In the same month as Emily Frederica was born to Frederick and Emily Stops in July 1868, Thomas Nevin took this photograph of Melville Street on a day of heavy snowfall which he exhibited at the Wellington Park Exhibition, Hobart. It was reproduced in the publication Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940: A Directory (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 1995:82).



Melville Street under snow, July 1868.
Photograph by T. Nevin late A. Bock
City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town
TMAG Ref: Q9134

The verso of this photograph carries Thomas Nevin's most common commercial studio stamp and the wording "This by W. J. T. Stops Esq."which suggests that the photograph was presented to Frederick Stops by Nevin in 1868, perhaps as a gift to Emily Stops on the birth of their daughter, and was then passed down to his son W. J. T. Stops, who subsequently donated it to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery from the Stops estate or from the University archives (Royal Society Collection) where more of Nevin’s photographs are held. It was then inscribed by an archivist on accession with the note - "This by W.J.T. Stops Esq".



Verso: Melville Street under snow, July 1868.
Photograph by T. Nevin late A. Bock
City Photographic Establishment, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Town
TMAG Ref: Q9134

Verso inscriptions:
C300 Hbt Melville Street
Pencilled: This by W. J. T. Stops Esq.
Kings Arms Murray St 1835
St. Mary's Catholic Burial Ground
W. Hobart July 1868



Son of Frederick Stops and Emily Tilley, William Joshua Tilley Stops 1894
Stone Buildings Hobart
Photograph - Mr William Stops, Tasmanian Exhibition, 1894-5, Season Ticket Holder 
TAHO Ref: ADRI:NS738-1-2471

Obituary: Frederick Stops
MR. FREDERICK STOPS.
We regret to announce the death at his residence, Garstons, Patrick-street, yester-day, of Mr. Frederick Stops, possibly the last survivor of the earlier age of civil servants, at the advanced age of 92 years. He joined the Law Department on his arrival from England in 1855, and retired from it as its permanent head 40 years later, receiving on his retirement, addresses from the Southern Law Society and from the rural municipalities in acknowledgement of the assistance those bodies had received during his long period of service. Mr. Stops's memory will be kept green in legal and municipal circles by his editions of the Tasmanian statutes, the first of which he published in 1885, and the second, bringing the Acts up to the end of the reign of Queen Victoria, in 1900. This was really his life's work, for he published two indices to the Statute Law, which was in a chaotic condition, in 1860 and 1864, and these were subsequently enlarged in the editions of statutes so well known and much used in the world of law.
Outside his office, Mr. Stops was of a retiring disposition, and took little part in public affairs, but he was a territorial justice, a governor of the Kennerley Boys' Home, and was for 25 years, until the burden of years compelled his retirement, a churchwarden of Holy Trinity. His wife predeceased him, and he leaves a daughter, well known in Church of England circles for philanthropic work, and two sons, Mr. W. J. T. Stops, Vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania, and Mr. F. N. Stops, Police Magistrate for the North- Western division.
'The funeral will take place at Cornelian Bay cemetery to-morrow morning.

SIR ELLIOTT''S REGRET.

"A RIGHT-HAND MAN."
Sir Elliott Lewis last evening expressed deep regret at the passing of Mr. Stops, and made fine reference to the work he carried out in the Attorney-General's Department. "He was a man for whom I had the deepest respect," said Sir Elliott Lewis, "and as a young Attorney-General he was extraordinarily helpful to me. The consolidation of the statutes, when he produced them, was a marvel of industry, care, and thoroughness. When I was Attorney-General in 1892 he was everything in that office. He was certainly the Attorney-General's right-hand man. He was draftsman of all the Acts of those days, and did the whole of the secretarial work practically alone. He drew up all the informations for the Criminal Court, and generally was a most conscientious and reliable officer."
OBITUARY. (1926, July 13).The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 6. Retrieved September 26, 2015, from https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29451057

Thomas Nevin, Frederick Stops and the prisoner photographs
Although this record of prisoner William "Clocky" Clemo is included in the Port Arthur Conduct Register for the years 1868-1869, further information about Clemo was inscribed on the second page pertaining to his conduct after he was transferred to the Hobart Gaol in 1873. He was discharged from the Hobart Gaol in the week ending 10th February, 1875. His name does not appear in the Port Arthur Conduct Register for the years 1873-1876 (TAHO Ref: CON94-1-2) because he was not at Port Arthur in those years. The second page of Clemo's record (below) was signed on the 17th March, 1874 by Frederick Stops, Clerk to the Attorney-General who contracted Thomas Nevin to photograph prisoners on arraignment and discharge. Frederick Stops and Thomas Nevin collaborated on collating information on prisoner records, both visual and written into the 1880s. This is Nevin's photograph of William Clemo, transported to Tasmania on the ship Equestrian 3 in 1852, sentenced to 7 yrs for “carnally assaulting a child under 12 years” in 1868 at the Supreme Court, Hobart:



Prisoner William Clemo, photographed by T. Nevin, 10 February, 1875 at the Hobart Gaol.
Source of image: QVMAG Ref: PH_PH30-3s_30-3229c



Prisoner William CLEMO 
TAHO Ref: CON94-1-1_00104_L
CON94/1/1 Conduct register - Port Arthur 01 Jan 1868 - 31 Dec 1869
Copy Number:Z1436



DETAIL of Page 2, William Clemo's prison record with the signature of Frederick Stops, Attorney General's Office, 17th March 1874.

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Rogues Gallery: the National Library of Australia collection



Provenance
The National Library of Australia's collection of police mugshots - originals of which were taken at the Hobart Gaol, Campbell St. Hobart and at the Mayor's Court, Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall, by government contractor Thomas J. Nevin from 1872-1886 - was acquired by the NLA from two main sources: twelve (12) "archival estrays" formerly the property of the Tasmanian government, were donated by historian Dr Niel Gunson in 1964; and copies of the seventy (70) cdv's exhibited at the QVMAG in 1977 as the work of T. J. Nevin were presented to the NLA by the exhbition's curator John McPhee in 1984, housed in an album from the John Watt Beattie collection. It was during the 1980s that the QVMAG's collection of Tasmanian "convict" photographs was dismantled, and distributed piecemeal to various public institutions, including the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (57) and the Port Arthur Historic site.

Full records with T. J. Nevin's attribution as the professional photographer commissioned to photograph Tasmanian prisoners on incarceration and discharge are held at the NLA, in Sprod Papers NLA MS 2320. The National Library of Australia has recently updated its digital software, yet the versos of these photographs, which can provide researchers with valuable information. have not been digitised. The NLA believes that the absence of a photographer's studio stamp on the versos - of police mugshots no less - is reason enough to engage in puerile political games of re-attribution, despite expert curatorial validation, and Nevin's government contract stamp on several of these mugshots held in other national collections. The versos of the majority of these photographs were incorrectly transcribed ca. 1890s-1900s with the wording "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" to promote penal heritage tourism to Tasmania when they were sent as exhibits to the Royal Hotel, Sydney, in conjunction with an exhibition of convictaria on the fake transport ship, the Success, which toured Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide before returning to Sydney. The majority of the 85 mugshots in the NLA collection consists of copies either duplicated from the originals - or missing from - the collections held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston.



Webshot 2007: Photographer Nevin, Thomas J.
NLA Pictorial list of Convict portraits, Port Arthur 1874



































Offline and in situ
Offline and viewed in situ at the National Library of Australia in the plastic folder sleeves and pockets (see examples below) in which they are housed, these very old 1870s and 1880s photographs of Tasmanian prisoners lose a good deal of their visual appeal which they otherwise seem to project when enlarged and digitised for online viewing. The staff at the National Library of Australia readily protest that these photographs are prized as unique artefacts when confronted with criticism about the way they are treating their collection. Yet the plastic pockets - which are not the celluloid pockets used for other photographs in their collections - are contributing to the decay of these photographs and is clear evidence that the NLA staff prefer to dissemble, at times even respond with aggression when called out.

Likewise, the manner in which the NLA staff since 2007 have compromised government contractor Thomas J. Nevin's historically correct attribution as the commercial photographer of these mugshots with baseless tourist propaganda from Port Arthur employees playing the events-of-1996 sympathy card, is inflicting damage of another kind to the nation's cultural memory which these photographs inform. They should at the very least receive mature and professional treatment, but Australia's cultural heritage, it seems in this instance, is not necessarily immune from abuse by the very public institution entrusted to preserve it.

Example folder 1: rectos (below)



Example folder 1: versos (below)



Example folder 2: rectos (below)



Example folder 2: versos (below)



Example folder 3: rectos (below)



Example folder 3: versos (below)



Tasmanian prisoner mugshots - or "Port Arthur convicts 1874"
Taken at the NLA January 2015
Photos copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2015



State Library of NSW
[`Success' fake convict ship at Circular Quay, Sydney]
Call Number SPF / 763
Digital Order No. a089763

Fake and Fortune
The inscription - "Taken at Port Arthur, 1874" - on the verso of more than 300 extant cartes-de-visite copies of the original captures on glass by T. J. Nevin in the one sitting with the prisoner in the 1870s, together with the convict's name and ship on which he was transported - was mere touristic spin to tempt the intercolonial tourist to visit the ruins of Port Arthur, and to buy a cdv as a souvenir, perhaps a cdv of their criminal forebears. It was added to the versos by John Watt Beattie and his assistant at his highly profitable "Port Arthur Museum" in Hobart, and dates from the 1890s-1920s. His reproductions and montages of these 1870s mugshots of Tasmanian prisoners - touted as "Port Arthur convicts"- were displayed on the fake convict ship, the Success, during visits to Hobart, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Sydney. The "belief" published by Chris Long in 1995 (Directory of Tasmanian Photographers 1840-1940, TMAG) that A. H. Boyd, as Commandant at Port Arthur until December 1873, was the photographer of these Tasmanian prisoners is a deliberate falsification of the facts, a doubling down of misinformation and disinformation in the name of dark tourism. A. H. Boyd was not a photographer by any definition of the term and played no part in their production and supply by government contractor T. J. Nevin at the Hobart Gaol, Campbell St. Hobart in the years 1872 to 1886.

Search this site for detailed police records for each prisoner's mugshot.

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