Welcome to the Parramatta Female Factory Friends – Parramatta Female Factory Action Group Inc blog. At the moment we are developing a great new website for you. In the mean time read our message below and go to the links provided if you want more information.
World Heritage Status for Parramatta Female Factory
Parramatta Female Factory site belongs to all Australians and is worthy of World Heritage Status.
The Parramatta Female Factory commenced in 1818 is not on the National Heritage List and is worthy of a world heritage site status. This historic Governor Macquarie commissioned and Greenway designed site is the earliest female convict site still in existence and is older than all but three World Heritage Convict Sites in Australia. Over 9,000 female factory women – approximately 1 in 5 Australians related to these women. It is a part of all Australian’s identity, our children’s heritage.
This site holds the stories of the women, men and children – stories of hardship, migration, survival, winning against the odds and going on to become the mothers, teachers, farm workers and businesswomen of the nation. Through their lives they have become the silent revolution as the mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, friends that contributed to the change in colonial thinking to what we know now as Australian values including: fairness, mateship, sense of humour, survival and making the most of life and opportunity. The stories have resonance today and can provide experiences that can spark meaningful connection and change for individuals.
The site is currently used for training, storage, offices, paper storage, client consultation, credit union or lies vacant. These could all be transferred elsewhere.
World Heritage Status
The Parramatta Female Factory Site needs to be protected, preserved, conserved, interpreted historically and make accessible to all Australians present and future through World Heritage Site Status.
The Parramatta Female Factory Site includes the Convict Female Factory site footprint which is the 1818 Governor Macquarie site, the 1820s Governor Brisbane third class additions and the Governor Gipps courtyard and cells additions.
Conservation Priorities
This site needs to be preserved intact in its entirety, just as it is with Port Arthur and Hyde Park Barracks. The architecture and architectural elements are of critical historical value.
Future reuse of the Parramatta Female Factory site:
Future reuse as a World Heritage Site – national resource and learning centre, research, education, museum, leisure and tourism activities focused on the Female Factories period with reference to the subsequent histories of the female factory footprint.
Get involved. Help us to bring the Parramatta Female Factory to all Australians.
Yours in community
Gay Hendriksen
President – Parramatta Female Factory Friends – Parramatta Female Factory Action Group
Email: pmattafemalefactoryactiongroup@gmail.com
Please email for information re Membership at $10 per year
Links: http://pmattafemalefactoryactiongroup.wordpress.com/
Information Link: https://sites.google.com/site/convictfemalefactories/
Postal Address:
Parramatta Female Factory Friends -Parramatta Female Factory Action Group Inc., PO Box 1358, Parramatta. NSW. 2124
Thanks for giving us a place to direct people’s attention to this appalling situation.
Carole,
Appalling is the word that comes t omy mind too. I don’t think anyone would think of putting a data room in the middle of Hyde Park BArracks or Port Arthur, so why the PArramtta Female Factory!
Gay
I have sent the communication to everyone in my address book, immediately the signatures went up by 10. Public servants and their peers make decisions on and behalf of the politicians, they are a bunch of faceless people who control everything we do, they are acting without proper knowledge and respect for our history, most of them would not have even visited the place they are desecrating. For our future please ring some sanity in their decisions.
we need more health chair stters like a hole in the head especialy now that the Area Health services are being replaced ,or are they ?
Roy,
It does concern me too that there will be another change to the area health devolving again to more local networks. This makes me wonder who will be in charge of this site next within the department and what will they want ot do with the site.
Gay
i and some of my family have signed the petition. wish there was more we could do. it is a crying shame that this whole area is not heritage listed. it should be valued as much as the rocks and hyde park barracks
Gale,
It definetely is as important. it is the earliest surviving convict women’s site in Australia. feel free to join the Female Factory Precinct Action Group. Contact convict.female.factories@gmail.com and advise you want to join and you will be added to the group. You can then be on the pulse of activites and find the aspect you may like to be involved in. Having said that saying what you have and helping the petition is doing something important.
Gay