BLACKTOWN CITY HISTORY International Women’ s Day in Blacktown
with John Horne
International Women’ s Day has been around for over one hundred years. This year’ s theme,‘ Balance the Scales’, aims to highlight the urgent need to ensure fair, inclusive, and accessible justice for every woman and girl in the world.
Blacktown’ s history reveals that many of its pioneering women came to Australia as convicts after being sentenced to transportation to New South Wales by the British Justice System for various crimes. They were banished from their families, their husband, their children and the world they knew. They arrived in New South Wales as prisoners who had few rights if any. As victims of the British Courts they were at the mercy of the system that existed then and also, of the men and women who administered that system.
Deborah Ellam is one example of how the British Criminal Justice System worked with female convicts after the First Fleet sailed to the new colony of New South Wales. She was convicted with two other women, Elizabeth Hewitt and Alice Hatton,
Convicts embarking for Botany Bay Courtesy National Library of Australia
Thomas Rowlandson’ s artwork depicts convicts being loaded onto a rowing boat for the long journey to the penal colony in NSW. The two corpses hanging from a gibbet are a gruesome reminder of the alternative to transportation.
for stealing dresses from their employer and wearing them together in public. Elizabeth Hewitt was committed to a house of correction for twelve months after which she was publicly whipped in Macclesfield. Alice Hatton was given two options: a sentence of six months in Chester Castle or a fine of £ 25. Deborah Ellam was sentenced to be transported beyond the seas for the term of seven years, a much harsher penalty.
In Sydney, after Deborah Ellam married John Herbert, she approached the Judge- Advocate, David Collins, to accuse her husband of beating her without just cause because she felt it was her right to be protected by the law and she probably felt that she had been badly treated. David Collins upheld the idea of male-dominance and ordered her to be given twenty-five lashes! In spite of this treatment, she returned to her husband and together they produced eight children and now she has thousands of descendants. Later in 1817, flogging female convicts was banned in New South Wales.
All women convicts sent to New South Wales faced harsh realities. Many became domestic servants for military officers and government officials or worked in textile manufacturing at the Parramatta Female Factory. Others struggled for survival and turned to prostitution to survive. Others married male convicts
Female Penitentiary or Factory, Parramatta, 1826 Watercolour by Augustus Earle Courtesy National Library of Australia
which could sometimes offer a path to freedom and stability.
Their lives were a mix of forced labour and potential exploitation – domestic service( sewing, laundry and cleaning) or sex work. They had limited opportunities, except when marriage gave them a chance for new lives. Some like Sarah Leadbeater, a sixteen-year old English girl, was a convict maid who began a relationship on Norfolk Island with William Lawson, the Commandant there. After marrying him in 1812 in Parramatta she lived on his estate at Prospect and was one convict woman whose life was much improved through marriage. Others had very difficult lives.
Female convicts could be assigned to serve in various houses, both large and small, which allowed all kinds of exploitation to take place. Unassigned female convicts were crowded into two rooms above Parramatta Gaol, where they spun wool and linen by day, and slept on the floor by night. This busy space was known as the Factory Above the Gaol. In 1816, Governor Lachlan Macquarie’ s regime built a bigger, purpose-built institution that sprawled over three hectares. Its remains still stand in Parramatta today. Over the following 26 years, approximately 12,600 women( twothirds of the colony’ s female convicts) passed through the Parramatta Female Factory.
The pioneering women convicts, many from the Female Factory who came to live
A cautionary poem by another convict, c. 1830 Courtesy National Library of Australia.
in the Blacktown City area, mostly settled in the districts of Toongabbie, Seven Hills, Prospect and Eastern Creek. All had been convicted and sentenced to seven years, fourteen years or life transportation to New South Wales. Many opted for the‘ marriage’ solution to survive, leave their prison and get ahead in the new colony.
It wasn’ t against the law for husbands to beat their wives in colonial times, so it is possible that these newly married convict women were subjected to domestic violence. They had to live with a man they had only known for a short time before being married, sometimes with disastrous consequences.
Many assigned convict women married the‘ master’ to whom they had been assigned. One example is Elizabeth Hollinsworth who married William“ Lumpy” Dean, from Eastern Creek and Dean Park fame, to whom she had been assigned.
Blacktown and District Historical Society Incorporated
EMERTON VILLAGE
02 8632 3408
Great Coffee, Great Food, Great Service!
Founded in 1976 to ensure that the history of the Blacktown area would be collected and conserved for all time by tapping into documents and people’ s memories.
You are welcome to visit our Research Centre, open Tuesdays 10.00 am to 2.00pm, or by appointment.
Grantham Heritage Park BDHS Research Centre 71 Seven Hills Road South, Seven Hills NSW 2147 PO Box 500 Blacktown NSW 2148 Phone 02 9676 1198 www. blacktownhistory. org. au
SHOP 1, 40 JERSEY ROAD, EMERTON
Monday – Sunday 7:00am – 5:00pm Kitchen last order 3:00pm
Leaf Cafe Emerton Village leafcafeco _ emerton www. leafcafe. com. au
10 ISSUE 60 // MARCH 2026 theindependentmagazine. com. au BLACKTOWN CITY INDEPENDENT