Parramatta Female Factory Precinct: Petition

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Welcome to the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct blog where you will find information and news about Australia's foremost historic site associated with women and children.

Where is the Precinct located?

The Precinct is located in the heart of Western Sydney about 3kls north of the Parramatta CBD on approximately 56 acres of land bounded by the Parramatta River, Fleet Street, New Street and the Parramatta Gaol…google map

What historic sites does the Precinct include?

The historic institutions of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct represent two adjoining sites namely, the convict Female Factory (1821 -1847), later the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum and now Cumberland Hospital (1847 onwards) and the Roman Catholic Orphan School (1841 - 1886), later the Parramatta Girls Home (1887 - 1983) and now the Norma Parker Centre – together these sites feature more than 72 buildings, built landforms, structural features, intact sub-floor deposits, open deposits and scatters and individual artifacts.

Australia’s Forgotten History— Parramatta Female Factory Precinct

It is a little known fact that the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct is the location of Australia’s first purpose built female convict establishment. Completed in 1821, all convict women and children sent to NSW ended up there unless otherwise assigned. Since then, the site has also been home to the first government orphanage for Roman Catholic children—later occupied as the Industrial School for Girls, and the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum (today the Cumberland Hospital).

Despite this rich and important history, the Precinct has not been utilised as a National Heritage tourism site for all Australians The Precinct has the potential to bring into our lives greater understandings of who we are as a people whilst acknowledging the significance it holds for women and the Forgotten Australians of its institutions.

Please support the call for the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct to be declared a site of national significance and returned to the people of Australia.

TO THE HONOURABLE THE SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF NEW SOUTH WALES IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.

We, the undersigned request that the buildings, structures and lands of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct be declared sites of national significance and utilised as a cultural and heritage tourism site for the Australian people.

NAME ADDRESS SIGNATURE

Visit our website to download petition

Landmarks in social history

With the end of convict transportation to the NSW colony in 1840 Australians began to distant themselves from their convict origins and places such as the convict Female Factory were forgotten. It is not surprising that the Female Factory was re-adapted as a lunatic asylum - after all who but the insane would tolerate living with the memories of convictism and our penal past. Equally this was the lot of orphaned or neglected children in their confinement in the precinct's later institutions, the Roman Catholic Orphan School and later Parramatta Girls Home. The mad, bad and sad were not to be heard, nor seen.They did not matter.

In 1988 Australia celebrated its bicentenary. Australians began to find long forgotten convict ancestors. This decade brought with it major reforms in health, education, welfare and justice. The institutions of the Parramatta Female Factory were shaken up - the Parramatta Girls Home closed; the Psychiatric Hospital's were emptied out.

1997 a watershed year when the Stolen Generations Report was handed down. Australians were now confronted with the truth of injustices visited upon the aboriginal people of this country. This year also marked the introduction of the Human Rights Equal Opportunity Commission - the beginnings of equal rights for women, children and indigenous people.

In 2004 the Forgotten Australians Report was handed down. the report found that upwards and possibly more than 500,000 Australians experienced institutional or out-of-home 'care' as children in the last century. Prominent in testimonies given were accounts of the cruelty and abuse endured by girls committed to the Parramatta Girls Home and its annex, the Hay Girls Institution.

The institutions of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct are no longer a hidden history of Australia. Please help us preserve this history.

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