Cascades Female Factory

* This name is listed on the World Heritage List. ª The region is classified by UNESCO.

The Cascades Female Factory, a prison for female convicts from England, was operated from 1828 to 1856 in Hobart on Tasmania. Australia was one of the few areas of the world, were sent to the female convicts. In colonial times, a total of 134,000 convicts were deported from Britain to Australia, including 25,000 women. About half of the female deportees came to Tasmania, in what was then Van Diemen 's Land.

Most of the female convicts and their children spent at least some time in the Cascades Female Factory, which is regarded as a place of great suffering and inhumane treatment.

The building is considered one of eleven Australian Convict Sites registered on the basis of its historical and cultural importance since 2010 in the Australian National Heritage List and the List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Women convicts

In Great Britain of the 19th century slightest offense, such as a bread theft from hunger, punishable by death. Later the sentence was often reduced and deported to the condemned convict labor to Australia.

Female convicts were still considered at the beginning of colonization as important members of society, as subsequent wives, mothers, and as service personnel. Women were housed in the first time, not in separate prisons. When, however, increase the number of female convicts, this attitude changed and they were now considered undesirable and immoral. This paradigm shift led to women's prisons to discipline and social inclusion of female convicts were built. These prisons were used for education for work and religion and to adapt. An accommodation was in prison, even if the women were not able to work or defiant ill.

The idea of being able to make female convicts through work and education again become a respected member of society was widespread. In addition, it was hoped a solution to the growth problem of society, because due to the lack woman was the ratio of men to women in Tasmania then 10:1. First reform efforts emerged, the structure of own women's prisons was first called with Mrs. HR 1823 by the reformer Elizabeth Fry.

As of 1838, the treatment of female convicts changed: the newly arrived women were instructed by their arrival six months in the basic skills of reading and writing and kept away from other prisoners. After these six months they could be submitted as domestic servants to settlers.

Housing and living conditions

The administrative center of the Cascades Female Factory was located in the yard 1, 1828 in the 100 women were housed in the year. Court 1 was originally a distillery; the private, walled grounds, a nursing home, a kitchen, shop, workshops and a chapel was in a hospital, divided.

Hof 3, which was built in 1845 and 112 individual cells contained, was used for punishment by isolation of female convicts. The farms 1, 2 and 3 also contained single cells. Punishment was having his hair cut, wearing iron chains and hard work. Women and their children had to wear prison clothes.

In the courtyard 4, which had been built in 1850 specifically as a nursing home for convict mothers, these were separated with their children aged three to nine months. After this time, the mothers were housed in other buildings of the Factory. The baby's death rate was high due to prematurity and the prevailing unsanitary conditions of the prison. Children who survived were sent at the age of two to three years in schools to Hobart and raised there by the other women.

The Cascade Female Factory quickly became known for their high morbidity and mortality rate that was significantly higher than that of Hobart, which led to investigations. 1838 were 208 out of 794 children who had been born there, died.

Building

The prison buildings were in Wetlands, leading to significant health problems because due to the humidity and cold for the women and their children.

When the transport of prisoners to Tasmania ended in 1853, the Cascades Female Factory was used as a prison and later as a poorhouse, a hospital and for other welfare purposes. 1905, the premises together with buildings was sold and the owner built the building back. The enclosure wall that enclosed the courtyards 1, 3 and 4 and staff building in the yard 4, was preserved.