Notorious Strumpets & Dangerous Girls Tour (Hobart Female Factory)

Notorious Stumpets and Dangerous Girls

Ladies, we hope you will join us for our lastest excursion where we will be heading to Hobart's Female Factory to learn more about the history of Hobart and potentially some of your ancestors (Jacqui's Great Great Great Great Grandmother was sent there for stealing a hanky in Cork, Ireland).   This new 60 minute storytelling experience "Notorious Strumpets and Dangerous Girls" takes visitors on an emotional journey through the stories of seven remarkable convict women who faced life’s hardships with resilience.

These women were often underestimated, belittled and forgotten. Seen by society as ‘notorious strumpets’, but there was so much more to each and every woman.

Through their lives learn about how female convicts were treated by society, and how they sometimes managed to overcome prejudice and inequality to succeed – despite all odds.

The Cascades Female Factory was a workhouse for female convicts and was operational between 1828 and 1856.  It was intended to remove women convicts from the negative influences and temptations of Hobart, and also to protect society from what was seen as their immorality and corrupting influence. The Factory was located, however, in an area of damp swamp land, and with overcrowding, poor sanitation and inadequate food and clothes, there was a high rate of disease and mortality among its inmates.

The Cascades Female Factory is the only remaining female factory with extant remains which give a sense of what female factories were like.

Join us for an optional lunch afterwards (more details to come).