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The Dictionary of Sydney
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Female penitentiary or factory, Parramata [sic]...

Female penitentiary or factory, Parramata [sic] c1826

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Gay men Lesbians Parramatta Female Factory

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Earle, Augustus

National Library of Australia

Gay men

Long demonised and persecuted, gay men have been part of Sydney life since first settlement. Two centuries have seen attitudes and perceptions change dramatically.

Lesbians

While desire and sexual encounters between women have been part of life in Sydney for centuries, their history has been largely unknown until recently. Attitudes to lesbians varied from moral condemnation to medical and psychiatric discourses of disorder, until the political and cultural organisations of lesbian feminism and gay liberation ushered in an era of lesbian pride and a vibrant social and cultural scene.

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.

Tourism

Women

Women's prisons

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.

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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