Ordinary Women. Extraordinary Lives.
Behind the sandstone walls of the Parramatta Female Factory were thousands of women, each with her own story of transportation, punishment, survival, resistance, family and freedom.
Between 1804 and 1848, the two Parramatta Female Factories received women from Britain, Ireland and other parts of the British Empire. They were young and old, mothers and daughters, domestic servants, skilled workers and women struggling with poverty.
Some were imprisoned for relatively minor offences. Others challenged authority or experienced years of confinement. Many went on to establish families, businesses and new communities throughout Australia.
Their stories remind us that the Female Factory was not simply a place of punishment. It was also a place of childbirth, work, separation, relationships, personal struggle and new beginnings.
Meet 21 remarkable women whose lives help tell the story of the Parramatta Female Factory and its place in Australian history.
The First Female Factory — 1804–1821
1. Charlotte Badger — A Life Beyond the Boundaries
Arrived: 1801, Earl Cornwallis
Transported from England for housebreaking, Charlotte Badger spent time in the first Parramatta Female Factory, established above the Parramatta Gaol. In 1806 she travelled aboard the Venus, which was seized by mutineers and sailed to New Zealand. Her involvement in the mutiny has been sensationalised, and the surviving evidence does not establish that she led it. Charlotte subsequently returned to New South Wales and married Thomas Humphries in 1811. Her story was selected because it illustrates how women could become caught up in extraordinary events and how historical myths can overshadow documented lives. [1]
2. Maria Riseley (Lord) — From Convict to Businesswoman
Arrived: 1804, Experiment
Maria Riseley was transported for seven years following a conviction for theft. She passed through the early Parramatta Female Factory before marrying Edward Lord in 1808. The couple subsequently established themselves in Van Diemen’s Land, where Edward became a wealthy merchant and landowner. Maria contributed to the family’s commercial success and raised seven children. She died in 1859. Her story challenges the notion that transported women remained permanently marginalised and demonstrates their contribution to colonial economic life. [2]
3. Mary Wilson (White, later Styles) — A Mother’s Second Beginning
Arrived: 1806, William Pitt
Mary Wilson was transported for life after a conviction connected with an offence for which her husband, Leonard White, was executed. She arrived with her daughter Eliza Jane, and both were sent to the first Parramatta Female Factory. Mary married James Styles in 1811 and had three more children. Her records contain several surnames and aliases, complicating efforts to reconstruct her life. She died in 1850. Mary’s story illustrates family disruption, changing identities and the possibility of rebuilding a life after transportation. [2]
4. Catherine Sullivan (née Ahern, later Elliott) — Resistance and the 1827 Riot
Arrived: 1814, Catherine
Born in Ireland, Catherine Ahern was transported after conviction alongside her husband Timothy Sullivan, who arrived separately aboard the Three Bees. Following years of hardship, Catherine married Emanuel Elliott in Parramatta in 1823. In October 1827, she was sentenced to three months in the Female Factory’s Third Class. Records show she received a further punishment for riotous conduct on 22 October, just five days before the famous riot of 27 October. Her direct participation in the riot itself remains unproven. Catherine later lived near Binda in the Southern Tablelands, dying in 1860. Her story reveals the hardships of family separation, institutional punishment and women’s resistance to authority. [3]
5. Mary Bruce — A Voyage Interrupted by War
Arrived: 1814, Broxbornebury
Convicted of theft at the Old Bailey in 1812, Mary Bruce originally embarked aboard the Emu. During the voyage, the vessel was captured by an American privateer, forcing its female prisoners to return to Britain. Mary was eventually transported on the Broxbornebury, arriving in Sydney on 27 July 1814. Records place her in the first Parramatta Female Factory shortly afterwards. Her later life requires further research. Her story is included because it demonstrates that transportation could involve considerable uncertainty and danger before women even reached Australia. [4]
The New Female Factory — 1821–1848
6. Elizabeth Browning Owen (Marvin) — A Mother’s Determination
Arrived: 1820, Morley
Elizabeth Browning Owen was transported for forgery with four children. Her eldest child was initially considered too old to accompany her, but permission was eventually obtained for all four to travel. Following arrival, Elizabeth was sent to Parramatta and her two daughters entered the Female Orphan School. She repeatedly sought their return. Following her marriage to Emanuel Marvin in 1822, the family was eventually reunited in 1823. Elizabeth died in 1839. Her story is a moving account of maternal determination and the disruption transportation imposed upon children and families. [2, 5]
7. Catherine Long (Grimes, later Carlow) — From Convict to Landowner
Arrived: 1823, Woodman
Catherine Long was convicted of stealing linen in Ireland and transported for seven years. In July 1826 she gave birth to a son at the Parramatta Female Factory. She subsequently married James Grimes and, later in life, established a relationship with William Carlow. The couple developed a farming property near Coonabarabran. Following William’s death, Catherine continued managing the property and became a successful landowner. She died in 1871. Her story highlights the economic independence some former convict women achieved despite difficult beginnings. [6]
8. Jane Wilkinson (New) — A Woman Who Challenged Colonial Authority
Arrived: 1824, transported to Van Diemen’s Land
Jane Wilkinson was transported from England after repeated convictions for theft. She subsequently moved to New South Wales, married James New and was sentenced to the Parramatta Female Factory in 1827 for shoplifting. Her case became entangled in a colonial legal controversy involving jurisdiction between New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. Jane escaped the Factory, and her subsequent movements remain uncertain. Her story illustrates how the actions of one convict woman could expose weaknesses in colonial administration and the legal system. [2]
9. Alice Leonard — The Woman Who Climbed the Factory Walls
Arrived: 1824, New South Wales
Born in County Donegal, Ireland, Alice Leonard was transported for stealing and repeatedly appeared before the authorities at Parramatta. She became notorious for escaping over the Female Factory’s high sandstone walls. In 1829 she was punished after entering the Matron’s garden and stealing peaches, receiving two months in Third Class. PFFF research records eight occasions on which she was punished. Her later life has not yet been fully established. Alice’s story was selected because it demonstrates persistent resistance to the restrictions imposed on convict women. [7]
10. Selina Jones (Spinks, later Carey) — A Pioneer of the Hunter Valley
Arrived: 1827, Grenada
Born in Bristol, Selina Jones was transported at 17 for stealing a cloak. The Grenada reached Sydney in February 1827, when most women were assigned directly to employers. PFFF research indicates Selina was assigned to Samuel Hervey in Parramatta, rather than establishing that she was confined within the Factory. She married John Spinks in November 1827 and raised eight children before his death in 1842. She subsequently married Bartholomew Carey and became a pioneer of the Singleton district. Selina lived into her nineties and left an extensive family. Her story illustrates the lives of women within the wider Parramatta convict assignment system. [8]
11. Susannah Watson — Separation, Hardship and Survival
Arrived: 1829, Princess Royal
Susannah Watson was transported from Nottingham for 14 years following a conviction for shop robbery. She left several children in England and arrived with her infant son Thomas. During her years in New South Wales she repeatedly entered the Parramatta Female Factory, including periods in Third Class. Her children experienced separation, institutional care and early deaths. After obtaining her freedom, Susannah remarried and settled near Gunning, where she died in 1877. Her surviving correspondence reveals her continuing desire to reconnect with family. Her story became widely known through Babette Smith’s A Cargo of Women. [2, 9]
12. Mary Connell — From the Factory to the Australian Bush
Arrived: 1829, Princess Royal
Mary Connell was transported from England following a theft conviction and experienced a succession of assignments and returns to the Parramatta Female Factory. She obtained her Certificate of Freedom in 1835 and established a family with John, another former convict. They later lived in the Yass and Goulburn districts. Mary raised ten children and lived until 1908, when she died aged approximately 98. Her long life spanned the transformation of New South Wales from a penal colony to a state within the Australian Commonwealth. [10]
13. Ann Walker — The Difficulties of Assigned Service
Arrived: 1829, Princess Royal
Ann Walker was among the women transported on the same ship as Susannah Watson. She was assigned to Harriet Howell, a Sydney washerwoman, but her colonial record reveals repeated disciplinary charges and sentences to the Parramatta Female Factory. Her experiences illustrate the difficulty convict women faced when assigned to employers and the limited control they had over their work and circumstances. Ann’s later life remains a subject for further research. Her story is included because it reflects the experiences of many less-visible women in the assignment system. [9]
14. Elizabeth (Eliza) Somers (Hall) — Mother of Bushranger Ben Hall
Arrived: 1830, Asia (fifth voyage)
Born in Dublin, Eliza Somers was transported for seven years after convictions for stealing. She arrived in January 1830 and was assigned to work in Sydney. Following the birth of her first child, she spent time at the Parramatta Female Factory, and later formed a relationship with Benjamin Hall, himself a former convict. They married at St John’s Church, Parramatta, in April 1834. Their son Benjamin Hall, born in 1837, became one of Australia’s best-known bushrangers. Eliza died in 1869. Her story illustrates the family connections between convict women and people who later became prominent in Australian history. [11]
15. Mary Noonan — A Long Life After Transportation
Arrived: 1830, Asia (fifth voyage)
Born in Ireland around 1812, Mary Noonan was transported for theft and spent periods at the Parramatta Female Factory, where she was punished for insolence and absconding. She later married, obtained her Certificate of Freedom and raised seven children. Following a second marriage in 1876, she lived until 1903. A remarkable later-life photograph depicts Mary with a spinning wheel, recalling the textile work that was central to the Female Factory. Her story demonstrates the long and often productive lives women built after their sentences. [7]
16. Anne Dunne (Tompkins) — A Mother and Her Child
Arrived: 1831, Hooghly
Anne Dunne was born in County Carlow, Ireland, and transported for seven years after stealing linen. She arrived in Sydney accompanied by her son John, and both were sent directly to the Parramatta Female Factory. Anne was later assigned to employers in the Penrith district. She married James Tompkins and appears to have died around 1879. A surviving nineteenth-century ambrotype photograph preserves her likeness. Her story was selected because it illustrates the experiences of Irish convict mothers and the importance of family photographs in recovering women’s histories. [2]
Women from Across the British Empire
17. Josephine Mercelin (Joséphine Ally) — A Woman from Mauritius
Arrived: 1833, Dart
Josephine Mercelin was transported from Mauritius after a conviction connected with receiving stolen goods and harbouring people who had escaped slavery. She arrived in Sydney on New Year’s Eve 1833, pregnant and separated from several of her children. Josephine entered the Parramatta Female Factory, where she died in June 1834. Her fate illustrates the global reach of British transportation and its connections with the plantation economies, slavery and colonial justice systems of the Indian Ocean. Her story is particularly important because it challenges the idea that all transported women came from Britain or Ireland. [12]
18. Constance Couronne (de la Sablonnière, later Trudgett) — From Enslaved Child to Australian Pioneer
Arrived: 1834, Dart
Born in Mauritius, Constance Couronne was an enslaved child when she was convicted, alongside her cousin Elizabeth Verloppe, of attempting to poison a woman to whom they had been hired out. Transported for life at approximately nine or ten years of age, Constance was among the youngest female convicts sent to New South Wales. She entered the Parramatta Female Factory before being assigned to the Wilson family. In 1841 she married Robert Trudgett, subsequently raised eleven children and settled in the Wellington district. She died in 1891. Her surviving photograph is a remarkable record of a woman whose life connected enslavement, convict transportation and Australian settlement. [13, 14]
19. Elizabeth Verloppe (later Larame) — A Child Separated from Her Homeland
Arrived: 1834, Dart
Elizabeth Verloppe was an enslaved girl from Mauritius and the older cousin of Constance Couronne. The girls were convicted together and transported to New South Wales for life. After entering the Parramatta Female Factory, they were assigned to the household of Sydney Police Magistrate Henry Wilson. Despite attempts to obtain pardons and arrange their return to Mauritius, both remained in Australia. Elizabeth married Jean Larame in 1840 and died in Sydney in 1874. Her story illustrates the vulnerability of children within slavery and colonial transportation systems and the enduring consequences of forced separation from family and homeland. [13, 14]
20. Emma (Emmilla) Mayner (Wilson) — A Family’s Legacy in Photographs
Arrived: 1837, Sarah and Elizabeth
Emma Mayner was convicted in Warwickshire of receiving stolen property and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. She arrived in New South Wales in April 1837 and was sent to the Parramatta Female Factory before undertaking domestic service in the Maitland district. She married Charles Wilson and raised eight children. Emma died at Uralla in 1886. Photographs of Emma and her daughters, together with surviving letters and personal objects, provide unusually rich evidence of her later life. Her story demonstrates how descendant families have helped preserve the voices and images of former convict women. [2, 15]
The Women Who Resisted — The Riot of 1831
The Women Who Resisted — The Riot of 1831
21. Honora Harrington (Meiklejohn, later Roach) — From Convict Rioter to Hunter Valley Pioneer
Arrived: 12 November 1828, City of Edinburgh
Born in Cork, Ireland, in 1812, Honora Harrington was transported at just sixteen after being convicted of larceny and sentenced to seven years. Shortly after arriving in New South Wales, she was imprisoned in the Third Class of the Parramatta Female Factory. In February 1831, while pregnant, Honora participated in the riot involving hundreds of women protesting against conditions and institutional authority. She received a further sentence of three years at a penal settlement and was transferred to Newcastle Gaol in March 1831. Assigned to Patrick Dowling at Wollombi later that year, she subsequently married Scottish immigrant Donald Meiklejohn in 1832 and raised a family in the Morpeth district. She later married James Roach in 1863 and died in Sydney in 1880. Her story illustrates female resistance, harsh secondary punishment and the contribution of former convict women to the settlement of the Hunter Valley.
Historical source: Cheryl Ryan, Life of Honora Harrington, compiled from family records, contemporary newspapers, convict indents, Newcastle Gaol records and marriage registrations.
Why she is included: Honora’s documented participation in the 1831 riot provides an important connection between the history of female convict resistance and the lives women established in regional New South Wales.
Their Stories Are Our Stories
These twenty-one women represent only a small proportion of those associated with the Parramatta Female Factory and the wider convict system.
Some became prosperous landowners or established large families. Others experienced separation, imprisonment, repeated punishment, illness and early death. Some resisted authority; others sought simply to build stable lives.
Their individual experiences cannot be reduced to the offences recorded against their names. They were mothers, daughters, workers, wives, neighbours and people whose decisions and circumstances helped shape Australian society.
Parramatta Female Factory Friends is committed to researching, preserving and sharing their stories — and the stories of thousands more.
Discover Your Female Convict Ancestor
Do you have a female convict ancestor who may have passed through the Parramatta Female Factory?
Our Research Centre holds specialist historical resources and welcomes family history enquiries. Descendants may also be able to contribute photographs, documents or family stories to our growing collection.
Explore the PFFF Research Centre
History. HerStory. OurStory.
Many Stories. One Australia.
Historical Sources and Endnotes
- Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 10, August–September 2016, “Charlotte Badger — A First Factory Woman & Pirate!”
https://www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PFFF-NEWSLETTER-10-AUG-SEP-2016.pdf - Parramatta Heritage Centre and University of Western Sydney, Women Transported: Life in Australia’s Convict Female Factories (2008), particularly pages 19–24.
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/sites/phh/files/field/media/file/2020-09/women-transported.pdf - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 29, September–October 2019, research on Catherine Sullivan, later Elliott.
https://www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PFFF-NEWSLETTER-29-SEP-OCT-2019.pdf - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 57, November–December 2023, research on Mary Bruce and the Broxbornebury.
https://nfhs.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Parramatta-Female-Factory_2023_11_Nov-Dec.pdf - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 8, April–May 2016, Elizabeth Browning Owen and Emanuel Marvin.
https://www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PFFF-NEWSLETTER-08-APR-MAY-2016.pdf - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 12, December 2016–February 2017, Catherine Long; ship arrival verified against the Woodman transportation records, 25 June 1823.
https://www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PFFF-NEWSLETTER-12-DEC-2016-FEB-2017.pdf - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 3, June–July 2015, profiles of Mary Noonan and Alice Leonard.
https://www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PFFF-NEWSLETTER-03-JUN-JUL-2015.pdf - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 49, Summer 2023, “Selina Jones”, family history research.
https://nfhs.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Parramatta-Female-Factory_2022_12_Dec-Feb.pdf - Babette Smith, A Cargo of Women: Susannah Watson and the Convicts of the Princess Royal (1988; subsequent editions); see also the Women Transported catalogue.
- Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 49, Summer 2023, “Mary Connell”, researched from the Princess Royal indent, Certificates of Freedom and Old Bailey proceedings.
https://nfhs.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Parramatta-Female-Factory_2022_12_Dec-Feb.pdf - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 6, December 2015–February 2016, “Elizabeth (Somers) Hall”.
https://www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PFFF-NEWSLETTER-06-DEC-2015-FEB-2016.pdf - Briony Neilson, “Josephine Mercelin: Convicts, Slaves and the Global Entanglements of New South Wales and Mauritius”, The Female Factory Online (2019).
https://femalefactoryonline.org/bio/josephine-mercelin/ - Clare Anderson, “Constance Couronne: From Enslaved Child in Mauritius to Emancipated Convict Grandmother in New South Wales” (2022).
https://www.convictscc.le.ac.uk/2022/08/31/constance-couronne/ - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Newsletter 43, Summer 2022–2023, Constance Couronne and Elizabeth Verloppe; and Convict Connections, June 2024.
https://nfhs.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Convict-Connections_2024_06_Jun.pdf - ABC Radio, “Female Convicts’ Contribution Recognised” (2008), interview with Emma Mayner descendant Shirley Moore; and Women Transported (2008).
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/worldtoday/female-convicts-contribution-recognised/467798
Additional research resources
- Museums of History NSW, Sentenced to the Parramatta Female Factory: https://mhnsw.au/indexes/female-factory/sentenced-to-parramatta-female-factory/
- State Library NSW, Index Female Factory Parramatta, 1826–1848: https://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/life-in-the-colony/Index-to-female-factory
- National Library of Australia, Female Convicts: https://www.library.gov.au/research/family-history/family-history-research-guide/convicts-research-guide/female-convicts
Parramatta Female Factory Friends Inc.
Protecting the past. Researching the women. Sharing the stories.