Hobart Cascades Female Factory
The Cascades Female Factory (a gaol for women who committed the most menial crimes in the UK) operated in South Hobart from 1828 to 1856. After it ceased operation as a female factory in 1856, it continued as a gaol under the administration of local authorities from 1856 until 1877.(It was originally a distillery). The factory's first intake of female prisoners was in 1828, and it gradually expanded to hold 700 female convicts and their children, though at its peak it was even more overcrowded than usual, holding 1200 women and children. 300 children died during this time!!!
Women were employed at the factory in washing, sewing, carding and spinning and some of them were employed as maids in colonies like Port Arthur.
Aboriginal settlers arrived on the continent from Southeast Asia about 40,000 years before the first Europeans began exploration in the 17th century. No formal territorial claims were made until 1770, when Capt. James COOK took possession in the name... ... read more 
