Cascades Female Factory TASMANI A Australia is one of the few places in the punished in solitary confinement. Additional punishments included shaving or cutting hair, the wearing of heavy iron world where large numbers of women collars and hard labour. were sent as convicts. The Factory was located in an area of damp swamp land which added greatly to the ill health of the women and Female factories were a unique Australian response to the children admitted to, or born in the factory after its management of women convicts, and one that reflected opening. It quickly became notorious for overcrowding, 19th century moral and penal philosophies. disease and high birth mortality rates. Over half of the 25 000 women convicts sent to Australia By 1838, 208 children had died out of a population went to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). The majority of of 794. The excessive death rate and appalling living these spent some time at Cascades Female Factory as it conditions were the subject of numerous inquests and was the primary site for the reception and incarceration of government inquiries. women convicts. It is the only female factory with visible fabric and ruins remaining. After the transportation of convicts to Tasmania ended in 1853, the Cascades Female Factory continued to be used Women convicts played a significant role in colonial as a prison, and later as a depot for the poor, the insane, society as wives, mothers and domestic servants. At first, as a hospital, and for assorted welfare activities. the authorities considered them to be most useful as their presence was regarded as contributing to social cohesion The Cascades Female Factory was included in the and stability, particularly as men outnumbered women by National Heritage List on 1 August 2007. 10 to one. The Cascades Female Factory Yard 4 North was included As the numbers of women convicts grew, the value of in the National Heritage List on 4 August 2009. their labour was questioned and they were seen as useless and contributing to immorality. The building of female factories was undertaken to manage them. They operated as places of work, of punishment, as hiring depots and places of shelter for women between assignments when they were sick or pregnant. Built in 1828 outside Hobart and operating until 1856, the Cascades Female Factory became one of Tasmania’s longest running penal institutions. Women were listed in the convict records, given government clothing and sent into a system of punishment, hard work and religious instruction until they were considered suitable for release as domestic servants. While male convicts were often punished with flogging, 19th century morality precluded such punishment for women. There were small cells in which women were AUS TRALIA’S NATIONAL HERITAGE 6 1.