Pat and Anne's visit to the Female Factory at Parramatta
IT’S A Riot AT PARRAMATTA FEMALE FACTORY FRIDAY 26TH October 1827
On Thursday 22nd October 2015, Anne and I departed on the train from Tamworth to Sydney, staying at the “Oaks on Castlereagh”. On Friday we commuted out to Parramatta for the celebration of the life and times of the Parramatta Female Factory.
We joined Tour 1, and was taken over the site, by Gay Hendriksen, President of the Friends of the Female Factory. Her passion was event and her desire for the History to be kept intact was strong.
Why was the Female Factory necessary?
From 1788 (the First Fleet) to 1853 when the last ship the “Duchess of Northumberland landed the last cargo of female convicts in Australia, the ratio of females to males was estimated to be seventeen females for every 100 males.
The concern of the government from the start was what to do with the women? The specific instructions concerning female convicts given to successive Governor’s endorses the View that marriage was the best means of employing women. This would be the most beneficial to society. Women’s labour could not be usefully exploited. When the “Lady Juliana” arrived with
222 female convicts, David Collins” was affronted, for such women were “utterly incapable of using any exertion toward their own maintenance.”
The selection system was run along the lines that Offers and Government men would select women as house keepers, or cooks. But this was mostly done for their sexual attractions. Those who were not selected became hutkeepers, made slops, picked grasses, oyster shells for making lime.
Later on the government was able to usefully employ women in the dairy, as midwives, nurses, caring for orphans, working in woollen manufacture, spinning, picking oakum (a loose fibre got by unravelling old rope), husking corn or sail-making. There were many that as the Governor put it “bone idle and in need of protection”.
Governor King created a suitable building, to house woman and males at Parramatta were they could be usefully employed. The first wooden structure, mysteriously burnt down in 1799, he wisely replaced it with stone construction in 1802. Upstairs were allocated for the accommodation and employment of women convicts. Woman who worked there by day slept there by night, this was not by choice, as the factory-above-the-gaol provided unattractive accommodation, containing no bedding or cooking facilities. The old female factory failed to deal with the problems of handling women convicts, and in keeping the male convicts from contact with the females, there for could offer no protection.
The good people of Parramatta were not impressed by the gaol and factory, one settler wrote to Governor Macquarie, insisting on a well-enclosed building. QUOTE! “Public asylums should be established for all those who are not living with their husbands, in which they might maintain themselves by their own labour, and after a certain period of good behaviour the single woman might have small donations of land and stock from the Government as a sort
of marriage dower if they had an opportunity to marry and settle reputably.”
Governor Macquarie, however provided one building for woman in his large and impressive construction programme. The new Parramatta Female Factory, described officially as a barrack-cum-factory. He employed Francis Greenway, (convict) as the architect, Major George Druitt, chief engineer and supervisor.
The new Parramatta Female Factory was intended to prevent all contact between female inmates and outsiders by means of high walls, a moat, and an imposing (even forbidding) stone structure.
Governor Macquarie insisted on a well-enclosed building. QUOTE! “ So as to keep them always within it and prevent their having any Intercourse with the People of the Town, until such times as they should be Married or Assigned as domestic Servants to Married persons.” -
On the 4th May 1818, the 4 acre site chosen was on the opposite side of the river from the old goal, and the Whole was to be enclosed by a 9 foot Wall, and was to be completed in eighteen months.
By the end of 1819 the New Female Factory was completed, Governor Macquarie separated the Criminal Class from the General Class, this was to be a check upon their ‘disorderly and vicious habits’
1ST CLASS WOMAN, received special Sunday clothes and they could receive friends as well as several other privileges. Old, infirm, those advanced in pregnancy and those with young children were in this class as well. Only women from this class were assigned and given access to the prospect of marriage. They could also receive remuneration for their work.
2ND CLASS WOMAN, were termed probationary. They could not go outside on visits, they were not to be assigned and were allowed only half of their remuneration for their work, the rest to be given to them when they left the Factory. If they behaved themselves for three months they could then be promoted to lst class. There were also several other differences, but were punished for foul language.
3RD CLASS WOMAN, these were woman who had re-offended, they had none of the privileges of the other two classes. Hard labour was often specified in a sentence, and this usually involved earth moving and stone breaking. However, the third class woman were employed within the Factory in manufacturing; but they received no remuneration for labour. "
After 1826, all women were required to bathe upon admission, were inspected by the matron and then issued with the clothing appropriate to their classification.
Health and cleanliness of women were affected by the lack of a water supply within the Factory. Women had only a trough in the yard at which to wash themselves. No towels, combs or brushes were supplied to aid their toilet, yet the new regulations of 1826 required all inmates to bathe weekly. Governor Darling made good the deficiency by adding a force pump to the Factory.
While they were in the Factory, women lost contact with their children who were four years old and over. These were sent to Orphan School but returned to their mothers when the latter left the Factory. Punishment for internal crime before 1826 was commonly three days on bread and water, four days in fetters, hair was cut or shaved off in front of everyone and in 1826 Governor Darling introduced the practice of cutting a woman’s hair short as a form of punishment for those in the 3rd class. (Cutting off her hair and shaving a woman’s head was a most humiliating experience and seemed to have a greater effect on the female prisoners than many other forms of punishment.) Rations of tea and sugar were also reduced and 24 to 48 hours in chains on bread and water in solitary confinement.
Factory labour discriminated against third class Woman, hard labour, no remuneration for their labour and the deduction in rations was the final act that brought about the first of two riots that the third class women were involved in.
On Friday 26th October 1827, Matron Raine who had reduced their ration a few days earlier was assailed during the night, but she had taken the precaution of alerting a party of constables who came to her rescue. Next morning, the new matron, Mrs Gordon, deducted tea and sugar from the ration as punishment for the attack on Mrs Raine. The women broke out of the Factory, but were convinced by Mrs Gordon to return. When half an hour passed but their rations were not forthcoming, they secured pickaxes, axes, crowbars and various other implements and made a destructive and violent exit.
Approximately 100 inmates went straight to Parramatta, while many others chose different routes. The Sydney Gazette reported, “that the inmates of the Factory were quickly poured forth, thick as bees from a hive.” After a series of sorties, the 57th Regiment convinced the women to return. Most did so, carrying food in their aprons which they had stolen from around Parramatta. The ringleaders were confined; but their companions freed them, declaring solidarity.
The second riot also coincided with a change in administration, when Mr and Mrs Bell replaced Matron Gordon in October, 1836. This time the riot was settled by immediately confining the perpetrators to the cells.
CONCLUSION
Parramatta Female Factory was the first of twelve factories built to house women convicts, it was above all else, a gaol-but a gaol with a difference.
A gaol, a house of asylum and probation, a home for the incapacitated (infirm, aged, blind, nursing mothers), a labour exchange, a marriage bureau, a hospital and manufactory.
What did incarceration mean to Women housed by the Factory? For women who might otherwise have been destitute, the Factory provided accommodation, food and clothing, as well as lying-in and nursing facilities. The conditions were often overcrowded. The quality of life-style, although providing some protection, exacted a heavy price.
At the beginning of 1846, there were approximately 250 Factory inmates. For the first time in twenty years, the numbers at the Factory were less than its stated capacity. In l848 it was being used to house Invalid and Lunatic Prisoners of the Crown.
