Cascades Female Factory/ Prison - UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hobart, Tasmania

I had the opportunity while in Hobart Tasmania to visit the Cascades Female Factory historic site which is now a UNESCO world heritage site.

Each one of these metal posts has the name of an Australian Penal Colony name on it.  I have now visited two and I am off to visit my third.

It is one of 11 convict sites scattered throughout Australia where prisoners were transported from the UK or England, Ireland, Scotland for usually minor offenses.  7,000 women made it through the Cascade system or did not make it through the Cascade system and many returned numerous times.  Cascades Female Factory is the most significant site in Australia associated with the story of female convicts. It took decades for women to get this site recognized by the Australian government.  A female factory was not just a prison to house female convicts. It was also a hiring depot, a workplace, a hospital and a nursery.  A nursery where there was a 70% mortality rate for the babies.  Cascades Female Factory ran from 1828 to 1856.  Today, three of the five factory yards survive.  

The Factory walls could tell some stories.

Most of the 5 yards original buildings did not survive after the Factory was shuttered and sold.  The steel and concrete dividers in this photo above lay out the exact size and shape of Solitary Confinement for the Female Prisoners.  Many were left in complete darkness for over a week given only bread and water daily.  They had a water pot and a chamber pot only.  On colder nights they may or may not be given a blanket.

Yard 3 where the first tour was held.

One story of a female convict.

Statue dedicated to the Female Convicts.

Dedication plaque.

'The Cascades Female Factory demonstrates how transportation was used to expand Britain's sphere of influence and ultimately led to building the Australian Nation'. As we know it today, five of the 11 world heritage sites are found within Tasmania.  Tasmania had the most convicts sent to its shores out of all of Australia.  There were three classes of women based on their offense.  Under good behavior you could work your way up.  'British transportation was the world's first conscious attempt to build a new society on the labor of convicted prisoners. The system was responding to the rising crime rates in Britain and the need to populate the Australian colonies over 165,000 men, women and children were transported to Australia and approximately 25,000 were women'. More than half of these women came to Tasmania. Most female convicts had not committed serious crimes, most had committed petty thievery due to living in abject poverty in Britain's industrial cities.  Many were forced to leave children and families reliant on them back in Britain. The oldest female convict was 72 sent to Cascades and the youngest female was 10 years old.

Long outdoor hallway leading to the inside of the Cascades Factory.

A man sent to the colonies had a good chance of doing well after he sentence was served.  They learned a trade and could begin a business with this experience.  Many got wealthy from it.  The female Convict was not so lucky.  Success for a female convict was finding a good man to marry and have children with.  Many women did but even more found themselves life long convicts coming in and out of the Penal System of Australia.  Tasmania and the mainland of Australia was full of men and a lone woman did not have a chance.  Women could be hired by companies in the interior and they had no protector.  Many resorted to prostitution to make ends meet and I am quite sure that most were repeatedly raped.  When first released many found themselves pregnant out of wedlock which was illegal and they were sent back to the Factory. They really did not have a chance once hired out.

Personally I find Australian Convict History utterly fascinating in a horrific way and especially the stories of women.  At the Cascades their voices are finally heard.

I paid for two different tours one was the life of a Convict Women's Tour and the Notorious Strumpets and Dangerous Girls.  Both guides were very good story tellers and they were both highly interesting.

All of the stories were depressing as hell especially the stories of the babies.  All unmarried pregnant convicts were sent back to Cascades.  If they survived the unsanitary conditions as well as their babies then the pair went to the nursery.  The nursery was damp, cold, and the water gave the babies dysentery.  Most did not make it.  If they did they went to the orphanage at 3 years old.  Some made it into good homes and survived and went on to populate Tasmania.  Many Convict mothers gave birth to countless babies only to watch them die one by one.

Another bronze statue dedicated to the Convict Women of Tasmania.  Unfortunately this depiction of a pregnant women was all to common.

This was the Matron's quarters.  Unfortunately most of the Matrons were harsh power hungry women that did not help the plight of the female Convict.  Most ignored the deplorable conditions in the nursery.  There was the belief of the 'Convict Stain' and they believed that the babies had this 'stain' and therefore were not worth saving.  It was not until the townspeople got involved and began to protest that things became slightly better.

Inside the Matron's Quarters which was a full sized house to herself with a few fireplaces in different rooms and it was quite nice.  The convict women's quarters and nursery did not have fireplaces.

Long metal sheet with the names of the Convict women that served in these walls.

Another Sandstone wall of the Factory that was originally built as a defunct Rum Factory and purchased by the Australian Government to be converted to the Cascades Female Factory.  These walls would have been built by Male Convict labor like most of Hobart was.

These were tough women to have survived first of all where they came from which was poverty and then Cascades Female Factory, childbirth and the harsh interior of Tasmania.  Hobart was an extremely rough Dock town and to thrive here alone you would need Super Human strength of fortitude as a female.