Chapter 15: Yard Four - Nursery (Location: Yard 4)

In 1850, a new yard dedicated to the Nursery opened. Despite the new facilities, conditions were still inadequate for the health and care of mothers and babies. 

Content warning: This chapter discusses infant mortality. 

If at Cascades Female Factory, we recommend you listen to this chapter while walking through Yard 4 (stop 15). 

Transcript

Moving the nursery off site had not improved conditions or the high death rate of the children.  So, in 1850, the Nursery was moved back to the Female Factory. This time to a dedicated Yard – Yard 4. 

A double-storeyed building ran along the wall adjoining Yard Three. This building was designed to house the women and children. On the ground floor were mess rooms and a sleeping area for weaned babies and toddlers. Upstairs, mothers and unweaned infants slept in four dorm rooms. These dorm rooms contained two tiers of berths for mother and child, not quite a metre wide. 

The rooms had fireplaces and there were windows throughout – an unusual feature in a Female Factory building. A single-storeyed kitchen with laundry sat at one end of the Yard, a wash-room and privies at the other. In front of the main building was a large exercise yard, with an open shed for shelter from the sun. 

In 1851, a visitor described finding 60 women and ‘as many babies from two years to as many days old’ in the Nursery Yard.  What is startling about his description is the silence of the women and children. No sound coming from any of them. Can you imagine a quiet Nursery? Almost 60 babies, under the age of two, not making a sound? It is a heartbreaking thought. 

But, in a system where the new Superintendent JM May and Matron Charlotte McCullagh enforced silence and self-control, it is no wonder the children and their mothers were so very quiet. 

The Nursery Yard looks like a big improvement on previous versions of the Nursery – a spacious yard and buildings, fireplaces and windows, outdoor shelter. But there were still problems with overcrowding  and conditions. The location of the Nursery was damp and cold, in winter the walls were saturated with moisture. The fireplaces, which were widely praised, were probably almost useless. 

Women and children cramped together in cold, damp rooms meant that illness spread quickly and easily. The death rate of children continued to be high - with most of the deaths attributed to conditions associated with malnutrition and poor sanitation.

In 1854, Dr Edward Swarbreck Hall stepped in to care for the children while the regular doctor was on leave. He was most distressed with the conditions he saw.  The Doctor reported that children were 'in a most pitiable state; a great portion of them requiring daily medical treatment, and the mortality frightful'. He said clothing was insufficient and often returned from the laundry ‘so wet as to be dangerous to use’. Which, whilst unforgiveable is understandable when we consider what it would take to hand wash and dry nappies in the winter for up to 150 children. 

During an Inquiry, Dr Hall also spoke of sickly children being kept outside in the yard all day, in all types of weather.  The babies’ feet were, according to Dr Hall, always stone cold. The diet for mothers and children was inadequate. And Dr Hall was appalled to discover infants being frequently kept in solitary confinement with their mothers. 

He pushed and fought for an improvement in conditions and for the removal of children from this convict nursery. Which happened, in late June 1854.  

Yard Four had been open for almost four years but the Nursery was used for only 26 months - a little more than half the time since it opened in July 1850. 

This inability to provide the appropriate conditions for mothers and their babies may go to show that prison is not a place for children …