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 5: Assignment System (Location: Yard 1)
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Convict women were set to work in homes and farms as part of the Assignment System.
If at Cascades Female Factory, we recommend you listen to this chapter by the First Class Yard (stop 5).
The classification of convicts was a part of the assignment system. Under this system, first class convicts, also known as assignable class, were sent to work in the colony as domestic servants or skilled workers. They were provided with food, clothing and shelter but not paid for their work.
In the assignment system, work was seen as the key to a convict woman’s reform. Industrious women were useful women. And the British Empire needed useful women to keep the colony growing.
Convict women were sent to work on farms and in homes. It was seen as a way for them to learn domestic skills which they could use in later life, when running their own homes and earning a living.
But this was a flawed system. Any free settler who could afford to keep a convict servant was entitled to one, and it was utter luck as it what kind of household a woman might find herself in. Convict women were vulnerable to mental and physical abuse by their employers.
However, some found themselves in good households and would remain there for their entire sentence.
If they committed an offence whilst on assignment, convicts would be returned to the Female Factory. Convict women would find themselves in front of the magistrate and tried for offences such as insolence, getting drunk, being absent without leave and neglecting their work. If they were found guilty of the offence they would be punished at the Female Factory. Once they had served their punishment they would be available for assignment once again.
And so the cycle continued …