Prisoner John SULLIVAN, cook and thief 1875

ANOTHER MUGSHOT by T. J. NEVIN taken in 1875



John Sullivan, per Rodney 2, taken at Port Arthur, 1874
Identifier: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-142921310

The carte-de-visite mugshot (above) of prisoner John Sullivan, transported to Van Diemen's Land prior to 1853 (when transportation ceased to Tasmania) on board the Rodney 2, was recently added to the collection of Tasmanian prisoner photographs displayed online at the National Library of Australia with the incorrect (and impossible) attribution to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd. The NLA's reproduction was made through plastic, as this color-adjusted version (below) reveals:



Although catalogued as a "portrait" of a "Port Arthur convict", it is simply a mugshot - one of thousands taken for the Municipal Police Office at the Hobart Gaol, the Supreme Court and MPO by professional photographer Thomas J. Nevin between 1872 and 1886. He took this photograph at the Hobart Gaol when John Sullivan was tried in the Supreme Court Hobart on 18th August 1875 on a charge of larceny and sentenced to incarceration at the Hobart Gaol for a period of twelve (12) months, per this notice in the police gazette:



John Sullivan convicted 21 August 1875
Tasmania Reports of Crime

Sullivan's trade was listed as "cook", his place of residence was Hobart, and his prior conviction on 29 May 1862 was duly noted. Sullivan was not convicted of any further felonies between 1862 and 1875, otherwise, they would have been recorded in this police gazette notice. When convicted in 1875, Sullivan was carrying a "F.S"certificate - Free in Servitude. He was, therefore, employed and not a prisoner at Port Arthur in 1874, despite the transcription on the verso of this cdv (according to the NLA, that is), which states -

"Part of collection: Convict portraits, PortArthur, 1874.; Gunson Collection file 203/7/54.; Title from inscription on verso.; Inscription: "302 John Sullivan, per Rodney 2. Taken at Port Arthur 1874"--In ink on verso.;"

The same transcription appears the verso of hundreds of these mugshots, and is undoubtedly the work of an archivist between 1915 and 1934.

When John Sullivan was discharged 12 months later from the Hobart Gaol on 30th August 1876, the police gazette recorded that he was a native of London, aged 58 yrs , 5ft 3inches tall, with brown hair and a large scar on on his left cheek, per this notice:



John Sullivan discharged 30 August 1876
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime 1875-1876
Gov't Printer James Barnard.

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.