Taken in 1869, this image comes from the 'Register of Returned Convicts' and is the oldest mugshot held by Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire Archives. Photographic portraiture of criminals was still quite a new technology: the earliest evidence of the photography of prison inmates comes from Belgium (1843-4) and Denmark (1851) with examples from Switzerland, the USA and England following in the 1850s and 1860s. At this early stage, there was no standardisation of how the images should be composed or technical conventions governing what should be included in the picture. Nonetheless, the existence of the photograph is proof that the police in Aberdeen had faith in this new technology as providing the best means of capturing the likeness of the individual.
It is not known where the picture was taken, although it could have been HM General Prison, Perth, as we know from a report in the Aberdeen Press & Journal of Wednesday, January 5th 1870 that Elizabeth had only been released from there a week previously before being arrested in Aberdeen for stealing several articles of clothing from a house on Berry Lane. Further details regarding her age and appearance are given on the page to which the image is attached.
These details include the fact that she had been living on Gardener's Lane and, when sentenced in April of 1870, she received ten year's penal servitude (P.S.)
No comments:
Post a Comment