The Cascades Female Factory Audio Experience
The Cascades Female Factory Audio Experience provides an overview of the history of the site as well as the stories of the women and children that spent time here. Most of the structures and buildings that made up the Cascades Female Factory have been removed or lost with time. Today, you can take your time as you wander through the space and listen to true tales of the courage, resourcefulness and resilience of the women lived, worked and aspired to a better life outside these same walls. The audio experience fills in the space between then and now.
The Cascades Female Factory Audio Experience
Chapter 4: Arrival (Location: Yard 1)
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After months at sea, women convicts entered through these gates to begin their sentence at the Female Factory.
If at Cascades Female Factory, we recommend you listen to this chapter at the original entrance to the Factory (stop 4).
This is the location of the original entrance to the Cascades Female Factory. The first female convicts entered through here in December 1828, transferred from the Hobart Town establishment.
In January 1829, the first group of women were sent directly from the convict transportation ship to the Female Factory. They had been at sea for more than four months aboard a boat called HARMONY. Many of the women brought their young children with them on this long and daunting journey. At 4 a.m they disembarked, women and children, and walked the 5 kilometres from the Hobart Town docks to the Cascades Female Factory.
On arrival, the women had their names recorded and details checked. They were examined, searched and washed. Their clothing and belongings were taken from them; burned if considered unfit, otherwise packaged up and stored away to be returned to the women upon their release. They were given their prison uniform – which included petticoat, jacket and apron made from coarse materials. And they were divided into classes. Separated into third, second or first class based on their criminal record and behaviour during the voyage.
But who were they? And why were they sent here?
Most female convicts were not serious criminals. Their crimes are what we may now refer to as crimes of survival.
Life in Britain was hard, especially for the working class. The Industrial Revolution had caused a mass movement of people from farms and villages into cities to find work in factories. But there was not enough work. And the work that was available was poorly paid. To survive, many turned to stealing. A crime-wave swept across the cities of Britain. Punishment was harsh. Many of the female convicts sent to Van Diemen’s Land were transported for petty theft. However, there were some who were transported for more serious crimes - like Mary Barnes who, at just 17 years of age, was convicted of poisoning an old woman by putting arsenic in the tea kettle after a disagreement.
The transportation and convict system was brutal. Girls as young as 9 were taken away from their lives, families, everything they knew – the youngest known convict at Cascades was just 10 years old. Convicts were sent to Van Diemen’s Land for transportation terms between 7 years to life.
In reality, very, very few would ever make it back to their homeland.