The Female Factory Online

Francis Greenway, the "Father of Australian Architecture," designed the Parramatta Female Factory, but it was not his first major project in Parramatta or even in the colony more broadly. Indeed, Greenway's first significant work in the colony was St. John's Parsonage, Parramatta, which was also the first complete house by a professional architect in Australia. Sadly, the parsonage was demolished in 1909. Had the parsonage remained, Greenway’s hand in its design would have invisibly tethered the parsonage-house to other architectural works associated with him to varying degrees, which are now rightly considered and treated as significant sites, including the World Heritage Listed sites of Old Government House, Parramatta and Hyde Park Barracks in Cadi (Sydney), the National Heritage Listed sites of the Parramatta Female Factory and First Government House in Cadi (Sydney), the State Heritage Listed Supreme Court of New South Wales, present-day Sydney Conservatorium of Music, St. James’s Church, Cadi (Sydney), Cadman’s Cottage at Tallawoladah (The Rocks) in Cadigal Country, and St. Luke’s Anglican Church, Liverpool in Dharug and Dharawal Country, as well as other heritage gems such as the Windsor Court House and St. Matthew’s Church, also at Windsor in Dharug Country. All of which makes abundantly clear just how much we have irrevocably lost and serves as a cautionary tale for what we may yet lose. Telling the story of St. John’s Parsonage here at least ensures that this lost heritage site’s place in Parramatta’s history, Aboriginal History, Māori history, the colony’s history, and the nation’s religious, social and architectural history cannot be so easily erased by our ‘suicidal policy of obliterating our ancient landmarks.’

Greenway is just one of many people whose lives intersected with the parsonage in one way or another from its birth as a Georgian Parsonage, its rebirth as a Victorian Mansion and Ladies' College, and its premature death in the Edwardian era. Read about all of those people, and the life of the building itself, in "LOST LANDMARK" by Dr. Michaela Ann Cameron (The Old Parramattan). The full publication is available to read now on St John's Online at the link below.

https://stjohnsonline.org/about/the-parsonage/

LOST LANDMARK: ST. JOHN'S PARSONAGE, PARRAMATTA
By Dr. Michaela Ann Cameron

* Introduction
* PART I: GEORGIAN PARSONAGE
* PART II: VICTORIAN MANSION
* PART III: LADIES' COLLEGE
* PART IV: EDWARDIAN RUBBLE
* Conclusion

ABOUT THIS PROJECT:

St John's Online is supported by the New South Wales Government through a Create NSW Arts and Cultural Grant.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

DR. MICHAELA ANN CAMERON is the founder and director of St John's Online and . She is an historian of colonial Australia and colonial America with a personal connection to the convicts of Old Parramatta; her family has lived in Parramatta continuously since 1801, and many of them are buried at St John's Cemetery. Known as “The Old Parramattan” for the purposes of her work as a public historian, Michaela has worked on a number of projects with the aim of promoting the history and heritage in her local area and raising awareness of its endangered heritage sites, including St John's Cemetery.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

St John's Online is supported by the New South Wales Government through Create NSW.

In 2016, St John's Online was also previously assisted with funding from the Royal Australian Historical Society and City of Parramatta.

IMAGES: (1) Francis Howard Greenway, pencil portrait by unknown artist, ML 482 / FL3266814, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. (2) American & Australasian Photographic Company, “Unidentified Building [St. John’s Parsonage, Parramatta],” Album of Photographs of Sydney & Country New South Wales, (c. 1871), PXA 933 / FL1075994, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

SAMUEL MARSDEN: A CONTESTED LIFE
By Dr. Matthew Allen

Reverend Samuel Marsden, Principal Chaplain of the Colony of New South Wales, was appointed to the board of management of the Parramatta Female Factory by Governor Ralph Darling in 1826. As chaplain, Marsden also married, baptised and buried many of the women and children who stayed at the Parramatta Female Factory in the parish of St. John's, Parramatta. His supporters have remembered him as a moral and saintly evangelical pioneer; his enemies have recalled a greedy and hypocritical ‘flogging-parson.’ Between these two conflicting visions the real Samuel Marsden has almost disappeared. But how did Marsden’s violently contested reputation develop over time? By exploring the key controversies and judgements which contributed to it, both during his life and since his death, we discover that Marsden’s reputation has been extensively shaped by anachronism—judging his actions by standards that did not exist when he acted—and that Marsden was a more complex and interesting figure than either of the dominant visions have allowed.

Read Dr. Allen's full essay "Samuel Marsden: A Contested Life" here: https://femalefactoryonline.org/bio/samuel-marsden/

This essay was originally published on St. John's Cemetery Project (St John's Online) as part of the Create NSW-funded "Old Parramattans" collection.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

DR. MATTHEW ALLEN is an Historical Criminologist whose diverse research is focused on the eighteenth and nineteenth-century British world and particularly colonial New South Wales. He is currently writing a history of alcohol in the colony which will explore the political symbolism of both celebratory drinking rituals and the regulation of public drunkenness in the period 1788–1856. Another major project examines the changing nature of deviance in New South Wales through a quantitative and qualitative study of magistrates and summary justice in the era of gubernatorial government, c.1810–1850. He is also researching secularisation and the role of religious faith, and especially protestant dissent, in the emerging colonial public sphere, c.1820–1840. All of these projects share an interest in understanding the unique and extraordinary transition of New South Wales from penal colony to responsible democracy, and the way that this process was shaped by the conflict between liberal ideals and authoritarian controls within the British world.

ABOUT THE PROJECT:

"Old Parramattans" is a collection of Create NSW-funded essays on people buried at St John's Cemetery, Parramatta (Australia's oldest surviving European cemetery, est. 1790) and/or registered in the parish of St. John’s. The resulting open access public history project (St John's Cemetery Project, St John's Online) illuminates the significance of the cemetery itself whilst also highlighting the many incredible heritage sites within walking distance of the historic cemetery, making St. John's the true "Gateway to Old Parramatta."

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The St John's Cemetery Project (St John's Online) is supported by the New South Wales Government through Create NSW.

In 2016, the St John's Cemetery Project was also previously assisted with funding from the Royal Australian Historical Society and City of Parramatta.

IMAGE: "Revd S. Marsden formerly Senior Chaplain of N.S. Wales, and founder of the New Zealand Mission -- pencil portrait drawing," in Album - scrap album compiled by Richard Jones, (1837–1858), Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

SARAH BELL: FEMALE FACTORY MATRON
By Dr. Jennifer McLaren

A great deal of interest surrounded Sarah and Thomas Bell’s appointment as the first married couple placed in charge of the Parramatta Female Factory. Governor Bourke, for one, hoped the Factory, which had become ‘much more a Gaol than an Asylum,’ would subsequently be placed ‘upon an entirely new footing.’ The Bells also had their detractors who claimed they would have little impact, but during their tenure the lives of convict women at the Factory changed enormously; solitary confinement cells were constructed, the convict women were set to work as needleworkers and laundresses to generate revenue, and the Factory’s population soared beyond belief—literally. For the Bells, the Factory population statistics published regularly would come to haunt them when a former convict inmate turned Factory sub-matron with ‘a degree of animosity utterly hostile’ towards the Bells cried “fraud!”

Read "Sarah Bell: Female Factory Matron" here: https://femalefactoryonline.org/bio/sarah-bell/

Matron Bell is the first of a number of Female Factory biographical subjects to be published both on the St. John's Cemetery Project (St John's Online) and The Female Factory Online as part of the Create NSW-funded "Old Parramattans" collection this year. STAY TUNED!

ABOUT THIS PROJECT:

"Old Parramattans" is a collection of Create NSW-funded biographical essays on people buried at St John's Cemetery, Parramatta: Australia's oldest surviving European cemetery (1790). From 2019 to January 2021, funds from the Create NSW "Arts and Cultural Grant" will allow a number of historians to apply their expertise to tell these diverse stories from Old Parramatta, including a number of free and convict people associated with the Factory. The resulting open access public history project will illuminate the significance of the cemetery itself as well as highlight the many incredible heritage sites within walking distance of the historic cemetery, making St. John's the true "Gateway to Old Parramatta."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

DR. JENNIFER McLAREN completed her PhD thesis, "Irish Lives in the British Caribbean," in 2018 at Macquarie University where she has also worked as an undergraduate tutor in the Modern History department. For her thesis, Dr. McLaren researched the lives of ten Irish settlers and sojourners in the Caribbean during the Revolutionary era to examine the Irish experience of empire—uncovering stories of slave traders, abolitionists, missionaries, planters and soldiers. Her findings spanned Irish history, British imperial history and the history of the Caribbean. Dr. McLaren’s Masters thesis also examined an aspect of eighteenth-century Irish history—the reception in England and Ireland of news of an imperial naval victory—and was published in a special edition on Transnational Ireland in the Irish studies journal Éire-Ireland.

Dr. McLaren maintains a blog dedicated to her passion for history: https://modhistorymusings.com. You can also follow Dr. Jennifer McLaren on Twitter and Instagram:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The St John's Cemetery Project (St John's Online) is supported by the New South Wales Government through Create NSW.

In 2016, the St John's Cemetery Project St John's Online was also previously assisted with funding from the Royal Australian Historical Society and City of Parramatta.

IMAGE CREDITS:

(1) “Mrs. Thomas Bell the mother of Joshua Peter Bell, J. Botterill, Photographer, Bee-Hive Chambers, Elizabeth Street, Melbourne.” Original unedited image held in Bell Family Collection, UQFL79, Box 4, Folder 12, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.

(2) A portrait of Female Factory Keeper, Thomas Bell, in later life, (1864), by J. W. Wilder. D16-10-91. John Oxley Library, Brisbane, State Library of Queensland.

If you’d like to donate funds to WIRES to help trained volunteers with all wildlife suffering in these conditions please do so here: https://www.wires.org.au/donate/emergency-fund

And if you see a flying fox in trouble, contact WIRES - don't touch them yourself.

****MESSAGE FROM WIRES****

Wires will be in Parramatta today spraying and monitoring the Flying Fox camps.

Please avoid going near the bats as they will be very stressed and we don't want them to panic and fly and use excess energy that will overheat them even further.

We have lost well over 700 flying fox pups since New Years eve with the excessive heat and smoke.

The situation for them is dire and tragic.

Please contact Wires if you see a flying fox in trouble, but do not touch yourself.

If you’d like to donate funds to WIRES to help trained volunteers with all wildlife suffering in these conditions please do so here

https://www.wires.org.au/donate/emergency-fund

ParraParents - Parramatta District Parents

Parramatta's endangered Flying Fox dying of heatwave stress at the Female Factory colony. 💔💔💔

Parramatta's endangered Flying Fox are dying of heatwave stress at the Female Factory colony. Who is responding?

The bats need Parramatta Park, City of Parramatta, SES or Fire and Rescue NSW Station 027 Parramatta to spray water, as seen in Melb https://twitter.com/AnimalsAus/status/1208998029056831490

HOUISON'S HE-CREATURE: A Valentine's Day Story of Unrequited Love

By Dr Michaela Ann Cameron (The Old Parramattan)

On this very day, 175 years ago, a convict woman and an unidentified "he-creature" were celebrating Valentine's Day 1844-style in the home of prominent Parramatta architect JAMES HOUISON. The rather hilarious events forged a connection between the Parramatta Female Factory, Houison, and his elegant family home, which still stands in all its Colonial Georgian glory at 64 Macquarie St, Parramatta [pictured].

Click the link to read all about it in this special Valentine's Day edition of The Female Factory Online blog!

https://femalefactoryonline.org/2019/02/14/houisons-he-creature/

🥰HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!🥰

JOSEPHINE MERCELIN: Convicts, Slaves and the Global Entanglements of New South Wales and Mauritius

By Dr. Briony Neilson

How did a pregnant, French-speaking, free Creole woman from Isle de France (Mauritius) come to be an inmate of the Parramatta Female Factory in 1834? And how might her experiences have differed to the majority of female convicts sent to the colony?

The life of Josephine Mercelin (aka Joséphine Ally), a married mother of five who colluded with a gang of runaway slaves by distributing their stolen goods, is interesting in its own right. It is, after all, the story of a woman whose actions, like those of fellow Mauritian convicts Constance Couronne and Elizabeth Verloppe, constituted a resistance to the Mauritian system of slavery in the early 1830s; actions which led to a permanent separation from loved ones and a sentence of servitude in a colony where she was a minority figure. But, as Dr. Neilson discovers, the life story of this exceptional individual provides an entry point into a much bigger story of global significance; revealing entanglements that connected convicts, slaves, imperial administrators of both France and England, and a southerly outpost of the British Empire to the Indian Ocean world in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Read the full essay now on The Female Factory Online:
https://femalefactoryonline.org/bio/josephine-mercelin/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Briony Neilson is an historian of France & New Caledonia with a focus on Criminal Justice History, French History, the History of Crime and Punishment, incarceration, penal colonisation, convictism and settler colonialism. She has published widely in academic journals including French‐Australia Review, Australian Journal of Politics and History, French History and Civilization, and Journal of the Early Republic. Dr. Neilson is a convenor, lecturer and tutor in history and criminology at the University of New South Wales and tutor at the University of Sydney, where she was awarded her PhD in 2012. Previously, Dr. Neilson also taught at Deakin University and the University of Paris III (Sorbonne-Nouvelle), France and is a professional translator and editor. Currently, she is Assistant Editor of H-France Salon, a multimedia journal for the scholarly study of French history and culture.

"Age of Morality: Youth and Criminal Responsibility in Third Republic France, 1877–1914," her book manuscript, is currently in preparation.

Read more about Dr. Neilson's research here: https://femalefactoryonline.org/historians/briony-neilson/

Follow Dr. Neilson on Twitter:

Josephine Mercelin Convicts, Slaves and the Global Entanglements of New South Wales and Mauritius By Briony Neilson. How did a pregnant, free, French-speaking Creole woman from Isle de France (Mauritius) come to b…