Chapter 8: Yard One Nursery (Location: Yard 1)

Some women brought their children with them on the journey from Britain; some became pregnant whilst serving their sentence. This is was the original Nursery Yard for mothers and children.  

Content warning: This chapter discusses infant mortality. 

If at Cascades Female Factory, we recommend you listen to this chapter from the location of the first Nursery (stop 8). 

Transcript

This is the location of the original Nursery Yard. It was home to children under three who had been transported with their mothers, and babies born to female convicts. While some of these pregnancies may have been the result of consensual relationships, others were definitely not. When sent on assignment, female convicts could find themselves in unsafe environments, where they were vulnerable and powerless. If a female convict became pregnant, she would be returned to the Factory to give birth. And she would be punished. Pregnancy whilst under sentence was a punishable offence. 

 After their newborns were weaned at 6 months, mothers were sent to crime class for 6 months of punishment. They were separated from their children who would be left in the nursery to be cared for by other nursing convict women. At the age of three, children were sent to the Orphan Schools. 

You will notice markings on the ground which represent the rooms of the nursery. Take a moment to imagine how cramped and crowded these rooms would have been. One doctor reported 27 women and 28 children crowded into two rooms. In winter, rooms were damp and cold. In summer, they were hot and the smell was overwhelming.

The paved yard outside was separated from the rest of the factory by a high, stone wall which provided little shelter from the elements.  

The regulation diet at the Factory was very poor, and completely inadequate for women who were pregnant or breastfeeding. There was not enough nourishment for women to produce the milk their newborns required. The women often complained of headaches. However, a coroner at the time dismissed complaints about the food and believed the diet sufficient considering the women were in a place of punishment. 

The diets of weaned children were also extremely poor. One doctor noted that rations for the children were insufficient to keep them in ‘good health’. He requested that a quarter pint, or roughly half a cup, of oatmeal be added to their daily allowance. 

The lack of cleanliness in the Nursery was another problem. In 1832 Lieutenant Governor Arthur made a visit and found the Factory to be in a ‘very dirty state’.  He described the blankets as being ‘quite black with fleas’ and commented that the children’s rooms were ‘particularly bad’, which he thought partly accounted for the sickly state of the children. 

For the children were sick. Infant mortality rates at the Nursery were high. It did not take long for the newspapers to report on the awful conditions of the Nursery and for public outcry to quickly follow. The coroner would make recommendations – for better food and conditions – which were ignored by the authorities. 

The nursery remained in this yard for ten years. In 1838 it was finally moved off site, to a small house in Liverpool Street, Hobart. The move was meant to improve conditions for mothers and their children but it did not succeed. The Nursery moved to a number of different locations before returning to the Cascades Female Factory in 1850. 

We will visit the last site of the Factory's Nursery later in our tour.