The Women Whose Labour Helped Build Colonial Australia
For more than forty years, the Parramatta Female Factory was a centre of textile production, domestic labour, manufacturing and punishment. The work of its convict women helped clothe, supply and maintain the growing colony of New South Wales.
From spinning wool and weaving cloth to sewing convict uniforms, washing military laundry and breaking stones for Parramatta’s roads, the women performed work essential to colonial life.
Some were skilled workers whose labour contributed to the economy. Others were compelled to perform exhausting and repetitive tasks as punishment.
The two Parramatta Female Factories, operating between 1804 and 1848, reflected changing colonial attitudes towards women’s labour, discipline, morality and reform.
Their history challenges the long-held assumption that female convicts made little economic contribution to Australia.
The First Parramatta Female Factory — 1804–1821
Establishing Australia’s First Female Convict Manufactory
In 1801, Governor Philip Gidley King encouraged the manufacture of rough woollen blankets at Parramatta as part of efforts to reduce the colony’s dependence on imported textiles.
In August 1803, King appointed George Mealmaker, a Scottish political prisoner and experienced handloom weaver, to supervise the development of a weaving establishment.
The first Female Factory was established in 1804 in rooms constructed above the Parramatta Gaol, on land now forming part of Prince Alfred Square.
Its purpose was twofold: to provide work for unassigned female convicts and to manufacture cloth and other materials needed by the colony.
Under Mealmaker’s supervision, the women undertook wool preparation, carding, spinning and associated textile production.
From Wool to Cloth
By August 1804, nine looms were operating at the Factory, producing several varieties of fabric:
- Woollen cloth: Including coarse materials used for blankets and clothing.
- Fine linen: Used for garments and household purposes.
- Duck cloth: A strong, closely woven fabric suitable for hard-wearing uses.
- Sailcloth: Heavy fabric for maritime purposes.
- Sacking: Coarse cloth used for bags and the storage or transportation of goods.
- Hemp and flax products: Fibres prepared for spinning, rope-making and other manufacturing purposes.
The number of looms subsequently increased to twelve.
Early records identify 2,116 yards of linen supplied through the Commissariat in exchange for wheat provided by local settlers.
The factory’s products became associated with the name Parramatta cloth, reflecting the contribution of local wool, textile manufacture and convict labour to the colonial economy. [1, 2]
A Difficult Working Environment
The early Female Factory operated under challenging conditions.
The women worked in cramped rooms containing spinning wheels, wool, cards and weaving machinery. Space was limited, and many women also depended on the institution for food and temporary shelter.
In 1806, approximately 72 women were reported to be employed in textile work.
A fire damaged the building in December 1807, temporarily interrupting manufacturing.
In May 1809, the colonial government announced that the Factory had resumed receiving wool and flax for manufacture under renewed supervision.
By 1818, Reverend Samuel Marsden reported approximately 150 women associated with the establishment, although only 46 were employed in its two crowded workrooms on a typical day: twenty spinning wool and twenty-six carding.
The building was plainly inadequate for both industrial production and the growing number of women and children.
These conditions contributed to the decision to construct a new, purpose-built Female Factory on the northern bank of the Parramatta River. [1, 3]
The New Parramatta Female Factory — 1821–1848
A Purpose-Built Place of Industry
Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s new Female Factory opened on 1 February 1821.
Designed by convict architect Francis Greenway, the sandstone complex was intended to accommodate approximately 300 women and included specialised work areas.
Macquarie provided for carding and spinning rooms, weaving and loom rooms, workshops, storage for wool and flax, a kitchen garden and ground for bleaching textiles.
The nearby Parramatta River provided water essential to textile processing, washing and bleaching.
The establishment was designed not merely to confine women but to operate as a productive government institution.
By the 1820s, manufacturing had become an important component of the Factory’s daily operations. [4]
Spinning, Weaving and Manufacturing Cloth
The production of textiles remained one of the Factory’s principal activities.
Women prepared raw wool, washed and cleaned fibres, carded wool to align the fibres, spun yarn and undertook other stages of cloth production.
The principal materials included wool, linen and linsey-woolsey, a fabric combining linen and wool.
The finished cloth was used to make blankets, convict clothing, household textiles and other articles for the colonial government.
How Much Cloth Did the Women Produce?
Contemporary reports and surviving production returns reveal substantial manufacturing activity.
An account published in the Sydney Gazette on 14 June 1822 reported a calculation based on 60,180 yards of cloth manufactured through the Factory system. The newspaper presented the operation as financially beneficial to the government.
A surviving monthly production return examined by PFFF researchers records the following output for December 1824:
- 2,084 yards of woollen cloth.
- 127¼ yards of linen.
- 52½ yards of linsey-woolsey.
This represents more than 2,260 yards of textile production in a single month.
By 1828, approximately 100 to 150 women were employed spinning coarse wool. The associated weaving operation was producing approximately 30,000 yards of cloth annually.
An important distinction is that in 1828 much of the weaving was performed by male weavers outside the Factory using yarn prepared by the women. A weaving workshop was subsequently established within the Female Factory in 1829.
By 1832, official returns identified women working as weavers within the institution, demonstrating the continuing development of women’s textile skills. [5, 6, 7]
Making Convict Clothing and Uniforms
Clothing the colony’s convict population was an expensive and continuing responsibility of government.
Women at the Parramatta Female Factory helped supply this demand through the manufacture, sewing and repair of clothing.
They made shirts, trousers, jackets, waistcoats, shifts, petticoats and other garments, including the standardised clothing commonly known as convict slops.
The women’s sewing skills were also used to manufacture articles for private customers.
In October 1839, the Colonial Secretary publicly advertised the Factory’s needlework services.
Customers could supply fabric already cut to shape, with finished garments returned through Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney.
The advertised charges included:
- Shirts: 1 shilling to 2 shillings and 6 pence.
- Shifts: 1 shilling to 1 shilling and 6 pence.
- Babies’ gowns or petticoats: 6 pence to 1 shilling.
- Trousers: 1 to 3 shillings.
- Jackets: 1 shilling to 2 shillings and 6 pence.
- Complete suits of convict slop clothing: 1 shilling and 6 pence to 2 shillings and 6 pence.
The advertisement reveals both the variety of garments made and the government’s determination to obtain revenue from the women’s work.
Commercial tailors also objected to competition from the Factory’s cheaper convict labour, illustrating the relationship between government-controlled work and private enterprise in the colonial economy. [8, 9]
The Colonial Laundry
Laundry became another important part of the Factory’s operations.
Women washed, scrubbed, boiled, rinsed, dried and prepared clothing and linen for the institution, government establishments and private customers.
The Parramatta River was closely connected with this work. Its water and nearby washing places were important resources during the early Factory period.
By 1839, new laundries had been constructed, and women were washing for the military barracks and hospital at Parramatta.
In 1841, arrangements expanded to include laundry from private households.
The work was physically demanding, involving heavy wet fabric, repeated scrubbing, lifting, carrying and exposure to hot water and outdoor weather.
Laundry was both a source of revenue and a means of keeping women employed.
Its importance is captured in Edward Winstanley’s political cartoon, Ways and Means or the Last Shift, published around 1844, which satirised the government’s efforts to raise money through convict women’s laundry work. [7, 10]
Other Skilled and Domestic Work
Not every woman worked at a spinning wheel or in the laundry.
The Factory required considerable labour simply to feed, clothe, supervise and care for its residents.
Women performed a range of domestic, skilled and institutional duties, including:
- Cooking and baking bread for the residents.
- Cleaning buildings, yards and communal spaces.
- Repairing and mending clothing.
- Knitting stockings and other woollen articles.
- Straw plaiting and making bonnets or hats.
- Winding yarn and preparing fibres.
- Nursing sick women and assisting in the hospital.
- Midwifery and caring for mothers and infants.
- Working as monitresses, portresses and attendants.
- Preparing flax fibres, twine, nets and other useful products.
The Factory also experimented with processing New Zealand flax.
In 1838, Governor George Gipps reported an experiment in which four women processed 100 pounds of flax over eighteen working days, producing useful fibres for building materials, twine and yarn.
By July 1839, contemporary newspaper reports advertised articles made from the processed flax, including twine, fruit-tree nets and hammocks.
These activities demonstrate the considerable diversity of skills and products associated with the Female Factory. [7, 11]
Hard Labour — Punishment in the Third Class
When Work Became a Sentence
The work undertaken by women was closely connected with the Factory’s classification and punishment system.
From the mid-1820s, women were progressively separated into different classes according to their circumstances and conduct.
Women in the First Class were generally eligible for assignment or performed recognised productive work.
The Second Class included women subject to probationary conditions, including some returned from assignment and women with children.
The Third Class, known as the penitentiary or punishment class, was reserved for women sentenced for colonial offences or repeated breaches of discipline.
For these women, work could be deliberately strenuous, repetitive and humiliating.
Breaking Stones for Parramatta’s Roads
One of the harshest forms of work was breaking stones into smaller pieces for road construction and maintenance.
Women used hammers to reduce larger rocks into road metal suitable for spreading and compacting on colonial roads.
The task was physically exhausting and exposed women to dust, injuries and the weather.
The stones were used on Parramatta’s roads, meaning that the work of imprisoned women contributed directly to the development of the town’s infrastructure.
Stone-breaking was particularly associated with the Third Class punishment yards. [12]
Picking Oakum — Unravelling Old Ship’s Rope
Another punishment task was oakum-picking.
Oakum was produced by pulling apart old rope and cordage, separating the strands into reusable fibres.
The fibres could then be used in caulking wooden vessels, sealing gaps between planks to prevent water entering a ship.
Old ropes were often stiff, dirty and impregnated with tar, making the work unpleasant and repetitive.
The women had to pick apart the fibres by hand, a task requiring patience and considerable manual effort.
Oakum-picking was a familiar form of workhouse and prison labour in Britain and became part of the punishment regime at Parramatta. [7, 12]
Chopping and Preparing Firewood
Women in the punishment class were also required, when necessary, to chop and prepare firewood.
Wood was essential for cooking, heating water, laundry operations and other domestic activities within the Factory.
The work was demanding, particularly when performed alongside stone-breaking and other manual labour.
Historical accounts indicate that women could be required to undertake wood-chopping when male convict labour was unavailable. [13]
Was There a Treadmill at Parramatta?
The treadmill, or treadwheel, was used as a form of punishment at some nineteenth-century British and Australian penal institutions.
Prisoners were required to step continuously on revolving wooden treads, often for long periods.
Although treadmill punishment was proposed or discussed in connection with convict discipline, there is currently insufficient evidence to establish that a treadmill was installed and operated at the Parramatta Female Factory.
PFFF research has identified an 1837 gaol record concerning Ellen Wood and a sentence involving the treadmill. However, the record does not establish that the punishment was carried out on a treadmill physically located inside the Female Factory.
Treadwheels are documented at Carters’ Barracks in Sydney.
Until contemporary plans, construction accounts or institutional records establish otherwise, it would be misleading to identify a treadmill as a known feature of the Parramatta Female Factory. [14]
Work, Discipline and Resistance
The women’s labour was intended to serve several colonial purposes.
It provided clothing and supplies, generated government revenue, supported institutional operations and helped control the daily lives of imprisoned women.
Yet there was an important difference between productive employment and compulsory penal labour.
Some women possessed valuable skills in spinning, sewing, weaving and domestic work. Others experienced forced labour as punishment, sometimes under harsh conditions and with limited food and few opportunities for rest.
Work could also become a source of resistance.
In February 1831, hundreds of women rebelled in the Third Class area, where they had been employed breaking and wheeling stones.
Their actions reflected wider tensions involving punishment, discipline, institutional authority and the conditions under which women were compelled to work.
The riot became one of several disturbances that marked the Factory’s history. [15]
The Changing Value of Women’s Labour
By the late 1830s, the government increasingly sought to employ women in commercially useful work.
Public advertisements encouraged the submission of sewing and laundry, while officials investigated new manufacturing opportunities.
Some women were allowed to benefit from a portion of the revenue generated through their work, although such arrangements were restricted by classification and conduct.
Despite these attempts, the government frequently struggled to provide sufficient employment for the large numbers of women confined within the institution.
In 1840, another official notice acknowledged that public needlework orders remained insufficient to occupy the women.
The commercial value of their labour therefore fluctuated according to demand, government policy and competition from private businesses. [9, 11]
The End of the Female Factory — 1848
The ending of convict transportation to New South Wales in 1840, changing labour arrangements and the gradual decline of the convict assignment system transformed the Factory’s role.
By the mid-1840s, the number of convict women remaining had substantially declined.
The Female Factory ceased operating at the end of 1847, and its administrative functions were abolished in 1848.
The buildings were subsequently incorporated into the Convict, Lunatic and Invalid Establishment and later Parramatta Lunatic Asylum.
Although the institution changed, the surviving buildings, sandstone walls and archaeological remains continue to tell the story of the thousands of women whose labour helped establish the colony.
The Legacy of the Working Women
The Parramatta Female Factory women were not simply prisoners or passive recipients of colonial discipline.
They were spinners, weavers, needleworkers, laundresses, cooks, nurses, mothers and labourers.
Their work helped produce clothing, supply institutions, support the growing town of Parramatta and develop the economic life of New South Wales.
Some were skilled tradeswomen; others were compelled to undertake gruelling work as punishment.
Their achievements deserve recognition, while the conditions under which much of their labour was extracted must not be forgotten.
The Parramatta Female Factory was built by convict men — but the labour of convict women gave it its name, its purpose and an enduring place in Australian history.
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Historical Sources and Endnotes
1. Terry Kass, Carol Liston and John McClymont, Parramatta: A Past Revealed (1996), pp. 60–61; City of Parramatta, “The First Female Factory, Prince Alfred Square, 1803–1821”.
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/blog/2015/08/12/the-first-female-factory-prince-alfred-square-1803-1821
2. Gay Hendriksen and Carol Liston, Women Transported: Life in Australia’s Convict Female Factories, Parramatta Heritage Centre and University of Western Sydney, 2008, pp. 33–34.
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/sites/phh/files/field/media/file/2020-09/women-transported.pdf
3. Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, May 1809, announcement of the reopening of the Parramatta Female Factory under renewed management. Reproduced and discussed in the City of Parramatta’s history of the first Factory.
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/blog/2015/08/12/the-first-female-factory-prince-alfred-square-1803-1821
4. Governor Lachlan Macquarie, description of the new Female Factory, 1821–1822; City of Parramatta, “The Second Female Factory: 1818–1848”.
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/blog/2015/07/28/the-second-parramatta-female-factory-1818-1848
5. Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 14 June 1822, p. 2, report on the Factory’s textile production and costs; discussed by Laurel May Heath in The Female Factories of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, Australian National University, 1978.
https://hdl.handle.net/1885/10869
6. Beth Matthews and Anne Mathews, “Our Girls: The Factory — A Place of Manufacture”, Parramatta Female Factory Friends Newsletter, No. 26, March–April 2019, p. 4. Based on Colonial Secretary’s Papers, bundle 4/1893, and original production records.
https://www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PFFF-NEWSLETTER-26-MAR-APR-2019.pdf
7. Gay Hendriksen and Carol Liston, Women Transported (2008), pp. 24, 41–42. Documents textile production, winding, weaving, institutional work and flax experiments.
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/sites/phh/files/field/media/file/2020-09/women-transported.pdf
8. Trove — Original newspaper advertisement: “Advertising”, The Australian, Saturday 19 October 1839, p. 3. The Colonial Secretary’s price schedule for needlework performed at Parramatta Female Factory.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36862029
9. Trove — Original newspaper advertisement: “Advertising”, The Australian, Tuesday 14 July 1840, p. 2. Notice seeking additional needlework to keep the women employed.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36852003
10. Laurel May Heath, The Female Factories of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, ANU, 1978, p. 149; Edward Winstanley, Ways and Means or the Last Shift, c.1844, Dixson Library, State Library NSW.
https://hdl.handle.net/1885/10869
https://digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=FL991395
11. Trove — Original newspaper report: “No title”, The Australian, Thursday 18 July 1839, p. 3. Details of needlework, twine, nets, hammocks and straw hats offered through the Factory.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36862868
12. Museums of History NSW, Female Factory, Parramatta, archival research guide; Casey & Lowe, Baseline Archaeological Assessment and Statement of Heritage Impact, 2014, pp. 58–59, on workshops and punishment tasks.
https://mhnsw.au/guides/female-factory-parramatta/
https://www.caseyandlowe.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/21102014EuropeanArchaeologySOHIV3.pdf
13. City of Parramatta, Parramatta Female Factory: Interviews with Local Historian, 2018, discussion of Third Class work, stone-breaking, oakum-picking and wood-chopping.
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/blog/2018/06/29/female-factory-audio-transcripts
14. PFFF, Newsletter No. 42, November–December 2021, “The Treadwheel”, including Ellen Wood’s 1837 sentence and discussion of possible treadmill locations.
https://www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/PFFF-NEWSLETTER-42-NOV-DEC-2021.pdf
15. Trove — Original newspaper report: “Riot at the Female Factory”, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Wednesday 31 October 1827, p. 2. Provides wider contemporary context for discipline, rations and resistance.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2189269
16. Trove — Original advertisement: “Advertising”, The Australian, Friday 6 January 1843, p. 3. Objections to the price of garments produced by convict labour and competition with free tradespeople.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37114545
17. Museums of History NSW, “Female Factory, Parramatta”, including details of the original work returns: NRS-371, July 1822–November 1828 (with gaps).
https://mhnsw.au/guides/female-factory-parramatta/
18. Annette Salt, These Outcast Women: The Parramatta Female Factory 1821–1848 (Hale & Iremonger, 1984), particularly pp. 102–109. Principal secondary study of manufacturing, women’s work and institutional discipline.
Parramatta Female Factory Friends Inc.
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