* Amendment: the date of the riot was 27 October 1827

- Michael Rees (December, 2015)

Michael Rees, "Democracy in Action: First Contact with the Female Factory Friends," History Matters, (2 October 2015)

Michael Rees, "Parramatta Female Factory Riot Day Commemoration," History Matters, (4 November 2015)

Each October, the Parramatta Female Factory Friends (henceforth, ‘the Friends’) host a public event known as ‘Riot Day’ to commemorate a riot which occurred at the factory in 1827. On Riot Day, the Friends offer tours of the factory site, discuss the factory’s history, and invite high-profile guests to speak about the preservation of the area. My major project, a video entitled ‘Remembering a Riot’, uses footage from this year’s Riot Day commemoration and primary sources related to the 1827 riot to explore the female factory’s history and to argue for the importance of preserving its material remains. This is a particularly timely argument given the NSW Government’s recent approval of development projects within the Parramatta historic precinct.

‘Remembering a Riot’ argues that the female factory’s physical remains are essential to understanding its history. I highlight a number of pieces of archaeological evidence at the site which provide insights into the lives of the more than 5,000 women who went through the factory. For example, the factory’s walls whose sandstone blocks were bevelled to prevent women from escaping reflect the harsh, prison-like nature of the factory environment.[1] The remains of the third class sleeping quarters which housed over sixty women also offer an impression of just how cramped and uncomfortable life at the factory must have been.[2] Additionally, the hospital and birthing centre at the site demonstrate the factory’s numerous functions in the early colony.[3] The thematic emphasis which I have placed on the site’s material history attempts to connect the factory’s physical remains to historical accounts of life at the factory. Julie Owens, the Federal Member for Parramatta, has suggested that these remains help us to place academic histories and stories about the factory in their ‘historical context’.[4] As I observed on Riot Day, they also help members of the public engage with the factory’s history by enlivening historical accounts of the site’s past.

A number of secondary sources have informed this argument. As Gay Hendriksen has identified, protecting the site’s material history is incredibly important given that little of the factory’s ‘material culture’ still exists.[5] Like many working-class historical sites, the factory has been neglected and its history has often been ignored. This is in stark contrast to other well-preserved sites from the same period including Hyde Park Barracks and St. James’ Church. Annette Salt’s These Outcast Women has also helped me to understand the female factory’s institutional importance in the early colony. The factory was not only an industrial site, but also a prison, marriage bureau, and hospital.[6] These different roles can be identified in the site’s material remains, and are important to industrial and feminist aspects of the factory’s history.

In ‘Remembering a Riot’ I also implicitly argue that the 1827 riot was a sufficiently significant historical event to justify the site’s preservation. Numerous reports in the Sydney Gazette in 1827 demonstrate considerable public interest in both the riot and the police attempts to recapture escapees.[7] I have tried to provide historical context for this event in my video by examining the harsh conditions which prompted the third class factory workers to riot.[8] This is emphasised by video’s soundtrack, which describes the factory as ‘a place of infamy... a stinking hole’.[9] As Lee Rhiannon observed in her guest speech on Riot Day, this event is also very significant as it constitutes one of Australia’s earliest industrial actions.[10]

Presenting this project as a video offers a number of benefits, particularly to the Female Factory Friends. The Friends aim to inform a wider audience about the factory’s history, and to engage people in the site’s protection. In the past, however, they have struggled to attract new supporters. I believe that ‘Remembering a Riot’ can help resolve that problem in two ways. First, this video aims to engage people who would not otherwise be interested in conventional academic or public histories by emphasising an exciting aspect of the female factory’s past– the 1827 riot. By presenting the history of this event using primary sources and music, I hope that this video will engage viewers and prompt them to explore the history of the factory. I will share the video on Facebook and Twitter to target people between the ages of 15 and 30, a younger demographic than the Friends have traditionally engaged. The support of this age-group is crucial for the sustainable, long-term protection of the site. These social media platforms also allow people who have enjoyed the video to share it– an essential way to spread information about the female factory. By emphasising the female factory’s material heritage, I also hope that this video will also inspire more people to visit the site. Although the short video format which I have used is limited in its ability to offer deep historical analysis, the aim of my project to publicise the factory’s history is best served by this engaging and accessible medium. Gay Hendriksen, the President of the Friends, has indicated that such video material is also beyond the group’s technical expertise making this project a valuable resource which the Friends would not have been able to produce themselves.

These benefits come at a significant time in the campaign to preserve the female factory site as the New South Wales Government plans large-scale development in the Parramatta area. In the short term, increased publicity for the factory and visitors to the site will assist in developing the public support required to ensure that the remnants of the female factory are protected.  In the long-term, this support may help form the basis of the Friends’ ultimate aim– to have the factory listed as a National Heritage site. To assist in these efforts, I intend for this to be the first in a series of videos which explore different points of interest about the factory including its role as a meeting place for men and women in the early colony; its nursing and midwifery facilities, and its function as point of contact between indigenous and non-indigenous people.

— MICHAEL REES

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Dunn, Judith, Colonial Ladies: Lovely, Lively and Lamentably Loose: Crime Reports from  the Sydney Herald Relating to the Female Factory, Parramatta 1831-1835  (Riverwood: published by author, 2008).

‘Elopement Extraordinary!!!’, 29 October 1927, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Trove Digitised Newspapers, viewed 4 October, 2015.

Macquarie, Lachlan, Rules and Regulations for the management of the Female Convicts in the new Factory at Parramatta (Sydney: Robert Howe, Govt. Printer, 1821), 365/N, Mitchell Library Sydney.

‘Riot at the Female Factory’, 31 October 1827, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Trove Digitised Newspapers, viewed 4 October 2015.

Winstanley, Edward, ‘Ways and Means or the Last Shift’, (Sydney: E. D. Barlow, 1844), State Library of New South Wales (Dixon Library), The Dictionary of Sydney, Australia, viewed 4 October 2015.

Secondary Sources

Burgmann, Meredith, and Verity Burgmann, Green Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers’ Federation (Sydney: UNSW  Press, 1998).

Cushing, Angela, ‘The Female Factory at Parramatta 1804-1850s’, Collegian 5, no. 2 (1998), pp. 4-24.

Grunseit, Paula, ‘Our Fair Ladies’, Inside History 18, no. 2 (2013), pp. 33-35.

Hendriksen, Gay, Women Transported: Life in Australia’s Convict Female Factories, (Parramatta: Parramatta City Council Heritage Centre, 2008).

Hughes, Robert, The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia 1787-1868 (London: Pan Books, 1987).

Kent, David, ‘Customary Behaviour Transported: A note on the Parramatta female factory riot of 1827’,  Journal of Australian Studies 18, no. 40 (1994), pp. 75-79.

Mundey, Jack, Green Bans and Beyond (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1981).

Roweth, Chloë and Jason Roweth, ‘Female Factory’, in Light Another Fire, 2015.

Salt, Annette, These Outcast Women: The Parramatta Female Factory, 1821-1848 (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1984).

Stenning, Eve, ‘Nothing but gumtrees: textile manufacturing in New South Wales 1788-1850’, Australian Historical Archaeology 11 (1993), pp. 76-87.

NOTES

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[1] ‘Remembering a Riot’, video, directed by Michael Rees, 2015, 4:26.

[2] Ibid., 0:36.

[3] Ibid., 4:38.

[4] Julie Owens in ‘Remembering a Riot’, 3:46.

[5] Gay Hendriksen, Women Transported: Life in Australia’s Convict Female Factories ((Parramatta: Parramatta City Council Heritage Centre, 2008), p. 26.

[6] Annette Salt, These Outcast Women: The Parramatta Female Factory, 1821-1848 (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1984), p. 117.

[7] ‘Riot at the Female Factory’, 31 October 1827, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Trove Digitised Newspapers, <http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2189269?searchTerm=1827%20riot%20 at%20pparramatt%20female%20factory&searcLimits= >, viewed 4 October 2015.

[8] ‘Remembering a Riot’, 0:40.

[9] Chloë and Jason Roweth, ‘Female Factory’, in Light Another Fire, 2015.

[10] Lee Rhiannon in ‘Remembering a Riot’, 2:56.