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| Title: |
Mug shot of Frank McGowan, Robert McFarlane and John Dennis McFarlane, 23 May 1921, Central Police Station, Sydney.
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| Creator: |
New South Wales. Police Dept.
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| Date: |
May 1921
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| Format: |
[Picture] Glass plate negative:
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| Inscription: |
Emulsion side:
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| Place: |
Central Police Station (Sydney, N.S.W.)
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| Subject: |
police detainees and suspects
mug shots
criminals
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| Description: |
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."
Special Photograph no. 263. Robert McFarlane (the middle man in this trio) is mentioned in the Police Gazette, 7 September 1921 in connection with the theft of 'three clocks, two sports coats and other articles' from the warehouse of Dobson Franks Ltd. He appears in the NSW Criminal Register (24 September 1930) as a 'thief and petty larcenist'. His MO includes visiting foundries with a horse and cart and stealing ingots of iron copper and tin. He also 'steals laundered articles from clothes lines'. He is described as being of 'violent disposition', 'addicted to drink' and is said to associate with 'the vagrant class'.
This picture is one of a series of around 2500 "special photographs" taken by New South Wales Police Department photographers between 1910 and 1930. These "special photographs" were mostly taken in the 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 |
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| Published in: |
Peter Doyle with Caleb Williams City of shadows: Sydney police photographs 1912-1948 Historic Houses Trust, 2005, pp.197, 236.
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| Exhibited in: |
City of Shadows at the Justice & Police Museum, Sydney, November 2005-January 2007.
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| Source: |
Justice & Police Museum ; 102
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| Rights: |
Justice & Police Museum
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Record no:
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31288
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