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 14: Yard Three - Staff (Location: Yard 3)
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Yard Three included rooms for the many free people who worked, and sometimes lived, at the Factory.
If at Cascades Female Factory, we recommend you listen to this chapter in Yard Three (stop 14).
As in Yard One, this Yard included rooms for the Factory staff – offices, storerooms and accommodation.
A job at a female convict institution was one of only a few government positions available to women at the time.
Staff were free settlers, military pensioners and widows, single women and former convicts. Some appointments were made in London while other positions were advertised locally. People worked here as overseers, warders, gatekeepers, medical attendants, there was even a ‘needlework instructor’ employed at Cascades at one point.
With the opening of Yard Three and the use of probation stations and hiring depots, conditions at Cascades Female Factory became less crowded. Mary and John Hutchinson were still in charge as Superintendent and Matron, and they enforced silence, order and discipline throughout the establishment. It is interesting to note one official admitted that Mary was ‘virtually the Superintendent’ due to John’s ongoing poor health.
However, the Hutchinsons reign was soon to come to end …
With the opening of Yard Four came a new Matron and Superintendent and a different regime for the staff and convicts of Cascades Female Factory …