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Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
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Bonney Djuric on the Parramatta Female Factory ...

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Bonney Djuric on the Parramatta Female Factory 2009

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City of Sydney Council

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Health and welfare Parramatta Female Factory

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Convicts Women's prisons

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Female Factory

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Parramatta Female Factory

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Parramatta

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Djuric, Bonney

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Stockell, Poppy

City of Sydney Council

Health and welfare

The size and complexity of health and welfare services has increased exponentially since the early years of colonial settlement, but the partnership between governments and charities has remained at the heart of solutions to the problem of misfortune.

Parramatta Female Factory

The Parramatta Female Factory is the largest and oldest surviving convict women's site in Australia. Operating between 1821 and 1848, it was a refuge for women and children, elderly and sick women; a marriage bureau; a place of assignment and moral reform; a penitentiary; a women's hospital for the convicted as well as the free; and a workhouse - all rolled into one.

Convicts

Women's prisons

Female Factory

Assignment depot which also operated as refuge, workhouse, prison and marriage bureau for unassigned convict women who were classified by a three class system which determined their level of employment or punishment.

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Parramatta Female Factory

Accommodation for unassigned convict women sent to the colony, which became a workhouse, marriage bureau and hospital. This multiplicity of roles made it difficult to administer and it quickly evolved from a place of refuge into a prison.

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Parramatta

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Western suburb built on the land of the Burramattagal people. Sydney's second European settlement, it began as a government farm in 1788 and has many heritage listed sites. It is now the commercial hub of Greater Western Sydney.

Djuric, Bonney

Woman whose family poverty lead to her incarceration as a 15 year old child in harsh and abusive welfare institutions.

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