Females convicts awaiting their transport to Australia. Source: Independent, Australia
For years, historians such as Bob Reece and Patrick O’ Farrell have interpreted the Irish convict experience in Australia by focusing on men as they dominated the percentage of Irish convicts transported abroad. Although some historians have attempted to focus on the perception and mistreatment of Irish female convicts, the information regarding many aspects in their everyday lives is completely overshadowed by the stereotypical reputation that has been forced upon them. The mistreatment of Irish female convicts continued as they were portrayed as useless prostitutes who deserved to be imprisoned, thus immediately creating a negative association with all Irish female convicts regardless of their character or actions. The lack of primary sources surrounding the experience of Irish female convicts also highlights their maltreatment as they were deemed so irrelevant that they were not important enough to even be mentioned in most newspapers or letters.
There were numerous ways in which Irish female convicts were mistreated due to being Irish and due to being female. For example, some female convicts were imprisoned in female penitentiaries or ‘factories’ with harsh conditions and were forced to partake in long, gruelling labour. From these factories, the female convicts could be chosen as a wife or housemaid and were constantly controlled by their dominant male owner. Irish female convicts were often perceived by colonial Australian society as prostitutes; ‘admitted by everyone, that they are, taken as a body, infinitely worse than males’.[1]
Perceptions of female Irish convicts
Though historians like O’ Farrell have tended to disregard females when discussing the Irish experience in Australia, hose like Joy Damousi have sought out to ensure that historiography of the experiences of Irish convict women becomes just as important as that of Irish convict men. According to Damousi: ‘Women convicts were classified as members of a criminal class not solely because of the crimes they had committed but also because of the belief that they were habitual prostitutes. Female convicts were, as Lieutenant Ralph Clark reported in 1790, damned whores’.[2] As mentioned previously, Irish female convicts in Australia were mistreated due to their gender and were constantly referred to as prostitutes. Many of the Irish female convicts that were transported to Australia were perceived as being inferior to men and were deemed as only being useful as a housemaid or prostitute. According to Deborah Oxley, the majority of female convicts were of Irish descent: ‘Almost four thousand girls and women were shipped out directly from Ireland’.[3]
Numerous reports have confirmed that many Irish female convicts were sent to Australia for minor convictions such as stealing food to provide for their families. One example given by Reece is that of ‘Mary Neile, aged 22, from Waterford County who was charged with pig stealing; Mary Rath, aged 40 years, was given life for sheep stealing’.[4] Bridget Kennedy from county Meath was convicted for stealing butter as her previous labour work as a housemaid would clearly make her a prime candidate for servant work in Australia.[5] The Canberra Times newspaper published an article in the following years of convictism to further support the argument that Irish convict women were mistreated and perceived as ‘whores’ whilst also supporting the statement that this was not fully accurate. The article expresses the exclusion of Irish female convicts’ abilities as ‘shopkeepers, market women, hat makers, dressmakers, pastry cooks, bakers, washerwomen, etc.’[6] The newspaper also stresses the evident mistreatment of Irish female convicts as they were forced to deal with ‘the infamy associated with being criminals’ and also ‘as Irish women, the added stigma of rebellion and treason’.[7]
Female factories
Although it was the contemporary popular opinion that female Irish convicts in Australia were unrespectable prostitutes, Damousi insists that ‘Irish women were no more recalcitrant than others, and that on the contrary, they were relatively well-behaved and law-abiding’.[8] This outlook was overshadowed by popular opinion, expressed in numerous contemporary publications, including newspaper articles, which encouraged the sabotage of Irish female convict reputations. This biased opinion further promoted the mistreatment of Irish female convicts throughout their experience in colonial Australia as it allowed other inhabitants to believe that the convicts deserved it due. Damousi highlights the evident mistreatment of female convicts in Australia as she states they underwent ‘a system of forced domestic labour administered through assignment to private masters, and punctuated by confinement in the Female Factory for women who transgressed or became pregnant’.[9]
Irish female convicts were evidently victimised as a result of their gender in numerous instances which was highlighted throughout their experiences in female factories. The Sun newspaper, which published many articles on everyday affairs in Australia, published an article on the female factory and an incident during which female prisoners tried to escape. The article highlights the unfair perception of Irish female convicts as it refers to ‘the three hundred of these amazons’ who were the ‘worst and refractory among them’.[10] Instead of focusing on the harsh living conditions and mistreatment that drove the female convicts to attempt to escape, it bashed their characters as human beings.
Painting by Augustus Earle of Parramatta female penitentiary or factory, New South Wales, c.1826. Source: National Library of Australia
The female factories were used in Australia throughout the 1820s to imprison female convicts including many who were Irish. They were cruel prison-like systems which forced the female convicts to work gruelling long hours. The living conditions were extremely poor as there were numerous issues such as disease, overcrowding and the extreme abuse of the female convicts. Many of the female prisoners were chosen from the factories to become servants or wives. Some of the Irish convict women had trouble being chosen to leave the female factory as a result of their fluency in the Gaelic language which resulted in their bosses complaining that they were not responding appropriately to the instructions they were given.[11]
One of the main female factories that imprisoned Irish female convicts was the Parramatta factory in New South Wales. The Irish female convicts were badly treated in this factory on a daily basis. Although many contemporary newspaper articles gave a biased account of the factories’ living conditions and treatment of the women, Deborah Oxley states that ‘the emphasis was more on profit than welfare’ as it was a harsh place where ‘infants died and women laboured in cramped and unpleasant surrounds, threatened with brutal punishments’.[12] Irish female convicts were differentiated from of English or British descent as the Irish convicts were viewed as a ‘different class of people’.[13]
The majority of the female convicts transported to Australia contained a higher proportion of Irish female convicts in contrast to other areas of the United Kingdom. According to O’Brien and Travers, ‘Of the 1,190 transportees from Ulster, 25 percent were women, and a quarter of all the Irish transported were women, or twice the proportion of British convicts’.[14] The Sydney Monitor newspaper further illustrates the prejudice against Irish convict women as it publicly announced the termination of female convict transports as they are not deemed worthy enough to live in Australia. The newspaper described the female convicts as being ‘a dreadful expense, besides being a moral pestilence in the Colony’,[15] and continued on to protest against the transportation of female convicts as they were viewed as only useful for ‘furnishing a few freed men with whores’.[16]
Were all Irish female convicts prostitutes?
The concept of Irish women as prostitutes was largely connected with the Irish female convict experience in Australia. Historians such as Oxley and Williams have explored the prejudicial mistreatment and prostitute reputation that was inflicted upon many Irish female convicts, regardless of their involvement in prostitution. Many colonial Australian newspapers, including The Sun, illustrated the Irish female convicts as unworthy women who initiated crime and were associated with unladylike attributes. This perception of Irish female convicts is supported by Reece’s opinion that ‘the ‘Jack Donahoe of courage and renown’ is only matched by ‘the lass from the female factory’. Indeed, it is interesting to note that in several of the transportation ballads, the female is seen as the instigator of the crime’.[17] Evident from the newspaper articles, Irish female convicts may have been charged with stealing food or a sheep but were portrayed in a negative light by colonial Australian society regardless of their crimes. Oxley notes that because prostitution ‘was judged to be evidence of immorality, prostitution and badness were confused. Convict women were of ‘bad character’, though not all bad enough to be ‘prostitutes’: that was the claim’.[18]
The majority of literature that explores the Irish female convict experience in Australia tends to focus on categorising all of them as indecent prostitutes or arguing against this portrayal. Thus as a result, the Australian historiographical literature is therefore lacking regarding the convicts’ life. Although some of the Irish female convicts were involved in prostitution, many studies have expressed their reasoning as a means of surviving their new convict Australian life. As Dixon states ‘prostitution is a female occupation foisted upon women transportees by the denial of official accommodation and support, leaving them with no alternative but to prostitute themselves for survival’.[19] The stereotyping of Irish female convicts was evidently a contributing factor towards the harsh mistreatment that was inflicted upon them as they were perceived as being ‘utterly irreclaimable, being the most worthless and abandoned of human beings’ as stated by Lieutenant Breton.[20]
During this time period of course, women in general were viewed as the inferior gender and were continuously controlled by dominant male figures. This prejudice against women was further imposed on Irish female convicts as they were forced to either become a wife, housemaid or partake in slave labour in the female factories. Even though Irish convicts were collectively treated differently due to their nationality, there was also considerable differences in the treatment and perception of Irish female convicts in contrast to Irish male convicts in Australia. As Oxley declares, an employer could return a convict maid to the female factory if the female convict became unmanageable or fell pregnant and be swapped for a new maid ‘very much as an item of faulty merchandise might be returned to the shop where purchased for replacement’.[21] As a result of the high demand for housemaids and wives in Australia, the majority of female Irish convicts were brought over for pretty crimes if they were ‘young, single, Catholic women’.[22] Irish female convicts were also victims of bigotry once they arrived to Australia. Indeed, some newspapers highlighted their arrival by using the words ‘female servant’ throughout the article, terminology not usually employed in connection with the arrival of Irish male convicts.
It is evident from the contemporary newspaper articles and historians’ arguments that Irish convict women were generally mistreated in colonial Australia. Convict women were deemed as disreputable women and associated with prostitution regardless of the crimes they committed. Irish convict women were also forced to deal with the perception that they were rebellious, which further displayed them as the worst criminal creatures. Male officials constantly disregarded them as human beings, treating them instead as savages worse than their male counterparts. Although many sources refer to convict women in general, the majority of these appear to have been of Irish descent. Upon arrival in the colonies, they were either sold as slaves and housemaids, forced to engage in prostitution to survive or were imprisoned in female factories which dehumanised and punished them on a regular basis.
REFERENCES:
[1] Joy Damousi, Depraved and disorderly: female convicts, sexuality and gender in colonial Australia (Cambridge, 1997), p. 55.
[2] Bob Reece (ed.), Irish convicts (Sydney, 1993), p. 116.
[3] Deborah Oxley, Convict maids: the forced migration of women to Australia (Cambridge, 1996), p. 129.
[4] Reece, Irish convicts, p. 118.
[5] Oxley, Convict Maids, p. 134.
[6] ‘In praise of convict women’ in Canberra Times, 11 June 1989, National Library of Australia’s Trove, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article122269190, accessed 21 Feb. 2017, p. 19.
[7] ‘In praise of convict women’, p. 19.
[8] Damousi, Depraved and disorderly, p. 56.
[9] Oxley, Convict maids, p. 11.
[10] ‘Female Factory’ in The Sun, 25 Feb 1843, National Library of Australia’s Trove, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/228130858, accessed 19 Mar. 12017, p. 2.
[11] Oxley, Convict maids, p. 203.
[12] Ibid, p. 194.
[13] Damousi, Depraved and disorderly, p. 55.
[14] John O’ Brien and Pauric Travers, The Irish emigrant experience in Australia (Dublin, 1991), p. 12.
[15] ‘Female convicts’ in Sydney Monitor, 23 March 1836, National Library of Australia’s Trove, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32150994, accessed 01 Apr. 2017, p. 2.
[16] Ibid, p. 2.
[17] Reece, Irish convicts, p. 116.
[18] Oxley, Convict maids, p. 7.
[19] Miriam Dixon, The real Matilda – women and identity in Australia 1788 to 1975 (Australia, 1976).
[20] Damousi, Depraved and disorderly, p. 55.
[21] Oxley, Convict maids, p. 194.
[22] Ibid, p. 134.
Irish Aussies: historical perspectives 