He is not to be confused with William Dawson, Wesleyan Minister of Westbury (Tas) whose will dated 1886 is held at the Archives Office of Tasmania, nor with a Dr William Dawson who decapitated a man, reported in the press on 19 March 1869, when allegations that Dr Crowther and others in his medical and scientific cohort were taking bodies out of graves. Those "gentlemen collectors" involved included Morton Allport, who sought personal rewards for "donating" indigenous skeletal remains to overseas private and public collections.
Recto: Prisoner William Dawson per Barossa 2, Hobart Gaol, 8 Feb 1874
Photographed by government contractor Thomas J. Nevin fl. 1865-1886
Inscribed with the number "46" on mount in 1983
TMAG Ref: Q15584
Verso: cdv of prisoner William Dawson per Barossa 2
Inscribed in 1900s with the number "113" and “Taken at Port Arthur 1874”
NB: This mugshot was NOT TAKEN at Port Arthur, it was taken at the Hobart Gaol, 8 Feb 1874
Photographed by government contractor Thomas J. Nevin fl. 1865-1886
TMAG Ref: Q15584
The cdv was numbered "46" under the image on front mount in 1983 to keep track of it and 70 similar "convict" cdvs when it was removed from the QVMAG in Launceston for display at an exhibition, the Port Arthur Conservation and Development Project (PACDP) at the Port Arthur prison heritage site. It was not returned to the QVMAG, deposited instead in 1984 at the TMAG in Hobart where it is currently held. The verso of the cdv was numbered "113" with the prisoner's name and ship, and the phrase "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" in the early 1900s by John Watt Beattie and associates for display and sale as tourist souvenirs at his "Port Arthur" convictaria museum located at 51 Murray St. Hobart, and for inclusion in travelling exhibitions of convict records and artefacts on board the fake convict hulk "Success" at Hobart, Sydney and Adelaide during the tourist boom of the 1890s - 1900s.
Conduct Record 1853-1878
Government contractor Thomas J. Nevin photographed prisoner William Dawson on discharge to freedom from the Hobart Gaol in the week 8-11 February 1874. This document records Dawson's employment history and several minor offences from 1853 to 1878, such as defacing a book and disfiguring another prisoner by cutting off his hair.
Source: Libraries Tasmania
Link:https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/CON33-1-59/CON33-1-59P327
Link:https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/NamesIndex/1386488
Parliamentary Record 1870
Williams Dawson was 42 yrs old when he was tried at Hobart on 14 September 1867. He was sentenced to six years for larceny on 18 Sept 1869 and sent to the Port Arthur prison on the Tasman Peninsula, 60 kms south of Hobart. He was relocated to the Hobart Gaol on 23 August 1873, approved by the Attorney-General when his discharge was confirmed, and photographed per regulations in the week of 8-11 Feb 1874.
William Dawson was listed among colonial funded prisoners at Port Arthur in 1870. Many in this list were relocated to Hobart Gaol from 1873 where Nevin photographed them on arrival and/or discharge.
Source: Convicts. Paupers and Lunatics at Port Arthur
Return to an Order of the House dated 8th September 1870 (Mr. C. Meredith)
Laid upon the Table by the Colonial Treasurer, and ordered by the House to be printed October 13, 1870
Source: https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/tpl/PPWeb/1870/HA1870pp128.pdf
Police Gazette Record 1874
William Dawson's longest sentence in the 1860s-1870s (6 yrs) was served for the larceny of six flitches of bacon, and six hams. Lesser charges were for the theft of oats and hay:
PRESS REPORT 22 July 1869
TRANSCRIPT
POLICE COURT.
Wednesday, July 21st, I860. Before the Stipendiary Magistrate.
Burglary. - William Dawson and Edward Ryall, were charged on remand, with having on the night of the 6th July, inst., burglariously entered the premises of Messrs. Creswell and Turner in Macquarie-street, and stolen therefrom a large quantity of bacon.
The Superintendent of Police (Mr. Propsting) conducted the case for the prosecution.
Mr. Moriarty appeared for the prisoner Ryall. The prisoner Dawson was undefended.
William Creswell, butcher, of Macquarie-street, deposed : On the 6th July inst., about half past six in the evening I left my shop secured. I locked the door myself, and on returning to my place of business next morning I found that the box of the door-lock had been taken off. The door was closed to but not fastened. On going in I found a chopper on a table. I missed six sides of bacon and five hams. The five sides and four hams now produced are part of the same property, and are worth £25. I was not present when the property was found. The chopper produced is the one I have referred to. Mr. Stevenson, my managing man, went to the shop with me on the morning of the 7th inst. I am in partnership with Mr. William Turner, junr.
William Stevenson deposed - I am in the employ of the last witness. 1 was at my employer's shop on the evening of the 6th inst, and left about 6 o'clock. The door was not locked in my presence. I know the property now produced. It was in my employer's possession on the night of the 6th inst. I went to the shop again about a quarter to 7 on the morning of the 7th. Mr. Creswell came afterwards and sent to Mr. Turner for the key. When the key arrived he put it into the door and the door flew open. I then searched the place and found there were six flitches of bacon, and six hams wanting. The flitch of bacon I now point out I recognise from it having been stabbed with a sharp pointed knife, and the ham I point out was cut and cured by me from a pig killed at Mr. Walker's. I believe the cords with which one of the hams and four sides of the bacon produced are strung, are cords which I put in, and that the others are not.
At this stage the prisoners were ordered to stand back in order to procure the attendance of another witness. Mr. T. Westbrook at the same time took his seat on the Bench.
Source: LAW INTELLIGENCE (1869, July 22). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 3.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8860300
ARRESTED 26 March 1866
ARRESTED 22 Nov 1867
DISCHARGED 25 March 1868
ARRESTED 13 Sept 1869 larceny, sentenced to 6 yrs imprisonment with hard labour
DISCHARGED 11 February1874 and photographed by T. Nevin
CONVICTED Jan 1876 larceny, 3 months
DISCHARGED April 1876
DISCHARGED 27 July 1878
DISCHARGED 22 Jan 1879
ADMITTED Newtown Charitable Institute
1 Oct 1887 to 15 Nov 1887,
23 Feb 1894 to 14 Jun 1894,
08 Mar 1898 to 19 Sep 1898,
05 Aug 1899 to 06 Aug 1899
DISCHARGED pauper 11 Aug 1899
DEATH ? 15 Sept 1900 Hobart Hospital
DISCHARGED 11 Feb 1874
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime for Police (weekly gazette), Gov't printer J. Barnard
Prisoner William Dawson per Barossa 2 was photographed by contractor T. J. Nevin on discharge from the Hobart Gaol in the week ending 11 February 1874. He was tried for larceny at the Supreme Court Hobart on 14 September 1869 and sentenced to six (6) years. He was from York (UK), 50 years old at time of discharge, 5ft 5ins tall, greyish hair, scar on lip and five blue dots on the back of his left hand. The five dots tattoo known as the "quincunx," (like the side of a die/dice), was historically associated with 19th-century criminal gangs in London and Australia known as the "Forty Thieves" (AI), the four outer dots thought to represent the four walls of a prison cell, and the inner dot the prisoner, symbolizing time served behind bars (AI).
Source of image: Simon Barnard (2016) Convict Tattoos: Marked Men and Women of Australia (Text publishing)
https://www.simonbarnard.com.au/product/convict-tattoos/
Fakery and frame-up at the TMAG
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery constructed four wooden-framed collages under glass from their collection of Thomas Nevin's prisoner mugshots for an exhibition titled Mirror with a Memory at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, in 2000. William Dawson's image was placed bottom row, extreme left in this frame. However, for reasons best described as blind-sided, the TMAG staff who chose these mugshots sent the four frames to Canberra - five cdvs in the first frame, six cdvs per frame in the other three - with printed labels on the back of each wooden frame stating that the photographs were attributed to A. H. Boyd, the much despised Commandant of the Port Arthur prison. A. H. Boyd was not a photographer by any definition of the term, nor an engineer despite any pretension on his part and the social pretensions of his descendants who began circulating the photographer attribution as a rumour in the 1980s to compensate no doubt for Boyd's vile reputation. The history of this misattribution since the 1980s is documented fully on this site and in this recent article.
Top, left to right: James Glenn, William Ryan, Alfred Doran
Bottom, left to right: William Dawson, John Dowling, James Merchant
Photos copyright © KLW NFC Imprint 2014-2015
Taken at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 10 November 2014
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