child mugshots of the 1800s
During the Victorian era, kids as young as eleven received adult sentences for minor crimes. Here's an assortment of children's mugshots taken in Newcastle, England during the early 1870s. If some of them weren't labeled "PHOTOGRAPH OF PRISONER," you might mistake these portraits for school yearbook photos.
These photographs — which were shot between December, 1871 to December, 1873 — have come from the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums' Flickr page. They show convicted criminals who spent time in the Newcastle city jail. Many of these prisoners were jailed or sentenced to hard labor for minor theft — wood, beef, and coats are among the objects that got them into trouble.
The mugshots of these children are particularly heartbreaking. Even though we don't have the specifics of each convict's life history, the poverty and lack of opportunity in Victorian England meant that some of these were crimes of desperation.
These photographs — which were shot between December, 1871 to December, 1873 — have come from the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums' Flickr page. They show convicted criminals who spent time in the Newcastle city jail. Many of these prisoners were jailed or sentenced to hard labor for minor theft — wood, beef, and coats are among the objects that got them into trouble.
The mugshots of these children are particularly heartbreaking. Even though we don't have the specifics of each convict's life history, the poverty and lack of opportunity in Victorian England meant that some of these were crimes of desperation.
Photograph by The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
VINTAGE MUGSHOTS – ‘SPECIAL PHOTOGRAPHS’ BY NSWPD
The following pictures are from a series of around 2500 “special photographs” taken by the New South Wales Police Department photographers between 1910 and 1930. These “special photographs” were mostly taken in the jail cells at the Central Police Station, Sydney and are, as curator Peter Doyle explains, of “men and women recently plucked from the street, often still animated by the dramas surrounding their apprehension”.
Doyle suggests that, compared with the subjects of prison mug shots, “the subjects of the Special Photographs seem to have been allowed – perhaps invited – to position and compose themselves for the camera as they liked. Their photographic identity thus seems constructed out of a potent alchemy of inborn disposition, personal history, learned habits and idiosyncrasies, chosen personal style (haircut, clothing, accessories) and physical characteristics.”
The following pictures are from a series of around 2500 “special photographs” taken by the New South Wales Police Department photographers between 1910 and 1930. These “special photographs” were mostly taken in the jail cells at the Central Police Station, Sydney and are, as curator Peter Doyle explains, of “men and women recently plucked from the street, often still animated by the dramas surrounding their apprehension”.
Doyle suggests that, compared with the subjects of prison mug shots, “the subjects of the Special Photographs seem to have been allowed – perhaps invited – to position and compose themselves for the camera as they liked. Their photographic identity thus seems constructed out of a potent alchemy of inborn disposition, personal history, learned habits and idiosyncrasies, chosen personal style (haircut, clothing, accessories) and physical characteristics.”
In 1990 the Historic Houses Trust rescued a remarkable collection of NSW Police forensic photographs from a flooded warehouse in Lidcombe. Created between 1912 and 1964, the archive contains approximately 130,000 glass plate negatives depicting crime scenes, police activities, forensic evidence and mug shots and may be the biggest police photography collection in the southern hemisphere. The Historic Houses Trust has the job of conserving, repackaging, digitising, researching and cataloguing the archives contents, for which original record systems have been lost.
female mug shots
Images from the Historic Houses Trust website hht.net.au. The Justice & Police Museum is open daily 9.30am – 5pm, cnr Albert & Phillip Streets Circular Quay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
General $10 | Concession $5 | Family $20, T 02 9252 1144, books available at shop.hht.net.au.http://twistedsifter.com/2011/09/femme-fatales-35-vintage-female-mug-shots/
General $10 | Concession $5 | Family $20, T 02 9252 1144, books available at shop.hht.net.au.http://twistedsifter.com/2011/09/femme-fatales-35-vintage-female-mug-shots/