A few good reasons why you should join these people and sign the Parramatta Female Factory Friends’ NEW Change.org petition asking the Federal Government to submit an application for this unparalleled heritage site to be recognised as a National and World Heritage Site.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE NEW PETITION NOW
A convict-built sandstone wall at the Parramatta Female Factory with the top edge filed down in an effort to prevent further “illegal excursions.” Photo: Michaela Ann Cameron, CC BY 4.0, (2014)
Extract from “Riot at the Female Factory,” Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Wednesday 31 October 1827 p.2
Governor Brisbane’s third-class sleeping-quarters, c.1824. Catherine Smith would have slumbered here during her multiple stints in the prison-class of the Factory. Photo: Michaela Ann Cameron (2014)
The original 1818 wall at the Parramatta Female Factory. Photo: Michaela Ann Cameron (2013)
The Parramatta Female Factory’s 1818 wall. Photo: Michaela Ann Cameron
The small building to the left of the big blue doors was the “dead house” at the Parramatta Female Factory. Photo: Michaela Ann Cameron (2014)
Roman Catholic Orphan School / Parramatta Girls Industrial School / Parramatta Girls’ Training School / ‘Kamballa‘ / and Norma Parker Detention Centre for Women. Photo: Michaela Ann Cameron
The Female Factory Online 
We must indeed save the old Parramatta Female Factory
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This site belongs to all Australians, it should not be available for Councils, or state governments to do what they want with, it should be world heritage listed and made a tourist site, before anything is started to redevelop it with high rise.
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100% agree! I have heritage like Adele Elias and Barvara Hsuh and many more Australians have that is related to this historic site.
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This is part of my heritage, with one of my ancestors Catherine Biggs spent time there. We cant lose something so valuable. It is part of our Australian heritage it should be saved!
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Please leave this integral piece of our history ALONE.
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My ancestors survived the female factory, how can this not survive for many Australians. Our history and buildings are already changing too fast…Please save this part of our early history.
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I can’t believe that this is even being considered. I’m appalled that we could lose this part of our national heritage. This is our history and should always belong to and be open to the people of Australia.
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In 1999 The Honourable Justice Michael Kirby, of the High Court of Australia, Canberra, provided the following rationale for exploring and reflecting on our Nation’s convict origins:
The metaphor of the convicts is burned deeply into the Australian psyche. Most of the images of that time are […] cruel, painful and unyielding. Yet from that unpromising start a nation was fashioned. Its people were, within 50 years, showing their metal and demanding their rights. It was out of that determination that our Commonwealth was built. As we celebrate its centenary we must hope that, in its second century, we reacquaint ourselves with the painful early days, and dedicate our nation to upholding human rights and human dignity at home and abroad. If that is done, the spirits of the convicts and the guards who were shackled with them in fate will find peace. Out of suffering, justice. Out of cruelty, reconciliation. Out of indignities, human rights.
For these reasons we need to preserve the Parramatta Female Factory.
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My 3rd Great Grandmother, Esther Harrison was a convict at the Parramatta Female Factory and she gave birth to my 2nd Great Grandfather, Alexander Williamson in the Parramatta Female Factory hospital. I recently toured the site and I was very upset at the condition of the whole area, dilapidated buildings used to store documents and files, outdoor areas used as a concrete rubble dump. There was not even so much as a plague to acknowledge the existence of the Female Factory. This was the site of our first female prison and deserves some respect. We need to have the Factory restored so that my children and theirs can visit in future and have some idea of their history and the history of Australia.
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Australians deserve to have their heritage saved, not discarded as if it matters to no one. Where is the pride in our country, our history, our ancestors? Take note, this is important to us…far too precious to hand to developers…respect those who have gone before and the struggles they had to ensure that our lives would be better.
Apathy and neglect should not be our catch cry, rather ‘we are proud that these historical sites are treasured’.
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We need our History leave it alone
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Parramatta has a rich history that is rapidly being eroded due to greedy developers. Help us save some of the most significant and beautiful relics such as this!
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Parramatta has been my birthplace for 75 years today! If we don’t treasure our History, how will those who come after us know what life was like in the early days.How can they appreciate the wonderful efforts of those who suffered much for the sake of creating a new life in a new country.It is good to appreciate what has been achieved in this country over the years, to cherish the buildings whose walls have known the struggle of early life in Parramatta.We can look back with pride, as I do for the place where I was born 19th May 1940, the eldest child of nine children.I still visit the homes where I lived in Wollongong, during the war, in Northmead, when I was nine, the house my mother lived in as she grew up, on Pennant Hills Rd. These hold the spirit of my loved ones no longer with me. The Female Factory holds the spirit of the women who lived and worked there. It should be saved.
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We need to treasure our past for future generations it’s not just about now. My Irish convict ancestor Bridget gave birth to her daughter at the female factory. I would love to see it preserved
for my descendants to visit.
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This Is such a fundamental part of our history which needs to be preserved. Women’s history in particular is far too often invisible, let’s not lose this important heritage.
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My great great great grandmother Jane Waters nee MacDonald was a convict there around 1840.
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At one stage the Queen Victoria Building was due for demolition. It now stands in all its glory and has been beautifully restored. Historical buildings cannot be recreated once they have been destroyed through the short-sightedness of politicians of the day.
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Where is your petition? i’ll sign in a heartbeat. My God, is this Government vying for the crown of Bob Askin? As the most destructive, narrow minded, shortsighted, soulless Government in Australia. Here I was , thinking that at least, these historical Sydney buildings were safe, but no, when the developer bell rings, the Liberal Gov. of the day starts to salivate…..
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My two 4xgreat grandmothers were first Parramatta Female Factory girls. The two men to whom the y were assigned (Sarah had a boy by one of sailors on the way out) married them, John adopted Sarah’s son, William McCaul and they had another nine. All made good. Sarah, in 1819 (two years after she was free by servitude was 1 OR 3 WOMEN in New South Wales who held Carter’s Licences – that is they could conduct a carting business. NEW SOUTH WALES was a land of opportunity.
Alice Kershaw
1st july, 2015 at1.15pm
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We must make sure that what we achieved here in Australia is well& truly appreciated. Newcomers to our country should understand that we changed attitudes to how justice was delivered, that people deserved to be treated with decency ( still not the case in all countries),
Our convicts not only lived & worked in these buildings they built them with their own hands, as we built everything else& when they were freed they (we) went on to create this wonderful land.
What will go up here now ? Will we destroy the evidence that hat what wwas achieved here is unique, no other country can lay claim to the wonder of a social experiment that went so surprisingly well that what we have is the envy of the world. Are we going to allow that evidence to be replaced with cheap high slums.?
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