Vintage Australian Mugshots from the 1920s

It was anoth­er time, anoth­er place, a moment when crim­i­nals were invit­ed to pose for the cam­era. The mugshot as an art form.

Above we have one of 2500 “spe­cial pho­tographs” tak­en by pho­tog­ra­phers from the New South Wales Police Depart­ment between 1910 and 1930. The four men (Hamp­ton Hirscham, Cor­nel­lius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O’Brien and James O’Brien) were arrest­ed on charges of bur­glar­iz­ing the home of a book­ie — one Regi­nald Cat­ton — in April 1921. O’Brien was let off the hook, but the oth­er three dap­per ones weren’t so lucky.

You can find 30 vin­tage mugshots nice­ly curat­ed by Twist­ed Sifter. Or you can sift through a larg­er col­lec­tion housed by the Nation­al Library of Aus­tralia. H/T Coudal.com

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