The Ladies of Ash Island

Ash Island – around the area where the Scott family house once stood (R.Daniel)

Ash Island was once one of a number of islands and mudflats found in the Hunter River estuary near Hexham near Newcastle NSW. For thousands of years the Worimi and Awabakal people hunted, fished and collected food from the area, well supplied by the abundant flora and fauna that included water birds, shellfish, wetland plants, mammals and fish. The islands were explored and surveyed by Europeans in 1801.

Helena Scott

In 1827, Ash Island was granted to Alexander Walker Scott. He settled there in 1831, with his mother and sister, and made the island his primary residence after his marriage to Harriet Calcott in 1846, moving there with her, his step-daughter Mary Ann (his other step-daughter Frances had married) and two daughters Helena and Harriet.

Helena and Harriet became two of the most talented natural history artists in Australia.

                                                                      Ash Island surrounds (R.Daniel)

Surrounded by unspoilt native vegetation and under the inspiring tutelage of their artistic father, their shared fascination with the natural world grew. For almost 20 years, the sisters lived and worked on the island, faithfully recording its flora and fauna, especially the butterflies and moths.

But they had another claim to fame which is little known.

The first Australian-themed Christmas cards were designed by Helena Forde (nee Scott). The cards were chromolithographed in a set of twelve and depicted native wildflowers. First advertised in the Sydney Mail on 9 November 1879, they were marketed by the Sydney publishers Turner and Henderson, whose logo appears on each card (although they were probably printed in London). Helena's sister Harriet Scott designed a similar set of twelve the following year. A new version of the cards were reprinted about 1915, featuring the images at a smaller scale on stand-up cards, rather than the original 'postcard' format.

  

The Scott sister’s Christmas Cards

Forced through circumstance to become two of Australia’s earliest ‘professional’ female artists, it was a hard economic road. Harriet, it seems, had always suspected the challenges that lay in store for a woman in the world of the 19th-century arts and sciences. In a letter to her childhood friend Edward Ramsay in 1865, she’d revealed her frustrations and great desire to distinguish herself: ‘... in some way or other and if I were only a man I might do it, but as I am a woman I can’t try, for I hold it wrong for women to hunt after notoriety … clearly I ought to have been Harry Scott instead of Hattie Scott.’

Harriet, Mary Ann and AW Scott left Ash Island in 1866 after Mrs Scott’s death and Scott’s bankruptcy. Helena joined them in Sydney a year later. Their father’s bankruptcy forced the sisters to seek payment for their art and endure the perceived social shame for doing so. And indeed it was difficult for either of the sisters to ever receive the honour and respect that their males counterparts would have received for the exact same thing.

The sisters continued to draw and paint commercially throughout their lives, although Harriet did much less work after her marriage to Dr Cosby William Morgan in 1882, becoming step-mother to his four daughters. Helena was still actively seeking work in her 70s.

Harriet died in Granville in 1907 and Helena in Harris Park in 1910. Neither left any descendants.

Reference: http://australianmuseum.net.au/A-biography-of-the-Scott-sisters#sthash.RaCsCsgk.dpuf

Lost in Tasmania

I have had a need to visit Tasmania after reading a book called "The Tin Ticket" by Deborah J.Swiss.

It tells the story of some young girls being brought out to Australia after having been caught committing a crime in their native homeland.
The stories are disturbing and horrifying.
I wanted to see where "Cascades" Female Factory was and to feel what it was like to be on the site where part of this book has been set.

The outer shell of part of the Female Factory remains with outlines of where buildings once stood.

The power and emotion of the place can be easily hidden and misunderstood or underestimated if you are not guided around the site. It looks pretty bare and uninteresting.

I managed to get a photo of what the original factory site looked like in 1900 which gave me a better idea of what it all looked like.

But I would totally recommend a guided tour or take in a very special experience by either booking the "Her Story" Tour of the one I went on "Louisa's Walk".
Here is where it all changed as I became part of "Louisa's" journey.

The actors took us on a walk through the connecting park and created the scene for entering the Female Factory site. We were introduced to the yards, the buildings (no longer there) the work, the hardships and the true story of Louisa.

At one moment our actress knelt down in what used to be the Chapel and started to sing - the rain was pouring down on her in one of those cold showers that we experienced during our two days in Tassie as we heard her Irish voice signing out to her God to help her endure her pain.

There was not a dry eye in the yard amongst those watching.

We were shown the wall where names have been engraved of all of the female convicts that had spent time at the factory and then we were taken back through the Park and told a "semi sweet" happy ending so that we would not walk away too mournful.

As painful as it was to hear the story of the women of the Factory it was also a most powerful and absorbing experience and I am so glad that I spent time to travel to Tasmania to connect with these ladies.

I have now completed a few "factory" sites with Newcastle ( Girls Reformatory and Industrial School - Watt Street, Parramatta Female Factory and now Cascades Female Factory in Tasmania.

Feisty Caroline Chisholm

A great female heroine of our early pioneering history is Caroline Chisholm who first arrived in NSW in 1838. She worked to establish better conditions, suitable employment and accommodation for young migrant women. Yet she died with her achievements unacknowledged and in poverty.

Born in Northhamptonshire England in 1808 Caroline went on to marry Captain Archibald Chisholm of the East India Company at the age of 22 and against her will.

In 1832 she moved with her husband to India where he was stationed and established the Female School of Industry for the daughters of European soldiers.

In September 1838 the Chisholm’s moved to Australia settling in Windsor, NSW. 

Most women arriving in Sydney at that time came from the orphanages and workhouses of England and Ireland and were quickly corrupted and degraded during their horrendous journey out to the colony. Once arriving in Australia nobody really cared what happened to these women. Many were forced to huddle in doorways and dark corners or under trees in the park. Pimps and scoundrels took advantage of these poor women making them work long hours in terrible conditions in return for a meal or basic shelter. Many women hung around Sydney for months before getting any work at all and then found that their new employers wanted more than just work from them, they also demanded that they act as their mistresses.

Caroline began her quest to save these young women who were arriving in the colonies alone. She found shelter for them even by lodging them in her own home. She petitioned the Governor of NSW with requests of assistance and money.

It was finally agreed that as long as Caroline did not spend a cent of the Government’s money she was allowed to use a dilapidated storeroom in Bent Street, Sydney (near where the Royal Botanical Gardens are now situated) and she moved into the building November 1841 knowing that if she did not accept this offer she would not get another chance.

 The story goes that after a strong cup of tea she put a candle on the floor of the new premises and heard such a scuffling noise and she thought that dogs had entered the room. Adjusting to the darkness and light from the candle she found herself surrounded by rats. She lit another candle and sat in the middle of her bed until three rats came down from the roof and landed on her shoulder. How terrifying!

She decided that she would not be moved out by these creatures and with steely resolve laid out some bread and water and watched the rats feed while she read until morning light.

The next night she once again waited in the dark for the rats to return and again laid out the bread and water but this time she had laced the bread with arsenic. After a few nights she was relatively rat free and went about creating a space where the poor women could be taken off the streets and provided with shelter while Caroline tried to find them all jobs.

She went on in educating them with the common skills of cooking and cleaning, mathematics and elocution so as to make them suitable for employment as domestic servants in outback farming communities.                                                                                                                                                       Caroline Chisholm even came into our own backyard and founded one of her Female Emigrants' Homes at East Maitland in 1842. (pictured below in the 1960’s)

In 1857 she contracted kidney disease. She had spent the family’s money on her charitable ventures and was almost penniless. She could not even afford medical attention and finally left the country she had grown to love beyond any other for England. By 1871 she was living in a dingy room in Highgate where she stayed for five years slowly deteriorating and died at the age of 67 in 1877. Her husband died a few months later and they are both buried in Billing Road Cemetery, Northamptonshire, England.

The Inscription on her Head Stone reads, "Caroline Chisholm the Emigrant's Friend".
With her determination and courage she provided dignity and hope to the women and families daring to survive in the new colonies. It is known she aided over 11,000 emigrants.

Caroline is a true legend – may her story not be forgotten.

Above is a recent picture of the building once used as her Emigrant's Home in East Maitland (2012)

Information Sources include “Petticoat Pioneers” Denton Prout & Fred Feely

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/chisholm-caroline-1894

The Feisty Women of the Female Factory at Parramatta

One of the many things that really interest me is learning about and sharing the stories of early Australian settlers, especially women. A few months ago I read a book called the “Tin Ticket” by Deborah J. Swiss which is about the journey of female convicts to Tasmania. The book was an insight into their incarceration and travel from England to the female factory in Hobart called “Cascades”. So intrigued was I in their story that I wanted to know more and have booked a short trip to Hobart in October to see the site which I read about.

But we have a site of our own just as infamous as “Cascades” not far down the road at Parramatta, so last weekend I took a bunch of people and met our guide, Judith Dunn, for a two hour tour. The Female Factory at Parramatta was the first purpose built establishment designed to provide accommodation and employment for convict women. It also functioned as a penitentiary and a maternity hospital.                                                  

I really felt like I had stepped into the shoes of those women as we entered through the blue coloured gateway to where the third class facility, which was for the poorest and the worst behaved, was. Once inside the gates the stories came thick and fast and I wondered whether any of us, so used to our soft and comfortable lives, could ever have survived what these women had to endure.

The Dead House

The small building that you see to the left of the doorway was known as the “death house” or mortuary where bodies were kept before being taken away for burial. This was a quite a sombre reminder of what the realities of this place were.

As I walked the grounds I listened to the stories of the ladies and how, in spite of their tragic circumstances, they gave as good as they got. In the words of our tour guide “they were feisty, they answered back “. We were asked not to feel sorry for them. We were asked instead to honour their spirits and their determination to survive at all costs.

 Until 1826 the women were housed in what was   either the Merit Class or the Crime Class but this was later refined to a three class system with First class women the best behaved and eligible for assignment or getting out of the Factory, a Second 'probationary' class and a Third class either on secondary punishment or serving time for offences committed while having been assigned to work on farms or houses of free settlers.

First and Second class women were employed in a range of boring tasks such as wool picking, cloth scouring, weaving, laundry, oakum picking, needlework, cleaning duties and straw plaiting for which they received a small payment. Third class women were restricted to menial tasks and hard labour such as stone breaking and oakum picking.

Those huge standstone walls

Yes, you heard right – stone breaking! The factory was surrounded by beautifully crafted sandstone blocks. It was the job of the women to break down damaged blocks into rubble with mallets.
To add even greater insult to these women’s lives the administration decided to remove children from these women in an effort to keep them working at their optimum levels. An orphanage was built right next door. Children were allowed to remain with their mothers at the Factory until they reached the age of four years at which time they were sent to the Orphan School.  

The Orphanage

                               
This was later changed to two years of age just after “weaning”. The women lost all contact with their children until their release and often times longer depending on their circumstances. How heartbreaking would it be to be locked away so close to your children yet unable to touch, hold comfort or touch them.
It is estimated that about two thirds of the 12,600 or so convict women sent to the colony at Sydney spent time behind the Factory walls. In 1847 the Female Factory was re-assigned as a convict Invalid and Lunatic Asylum and in December 1849 a portion of the buildings was opened as a public Asylum. The stories of murders and strange goings on continued and it seemed to us like every corner held the ghosts of those poor individuals that were forced to spend time before those walls.

Buildings in Second Class

As darkness fell and the cold breath of the Parramatta river crept under our clothes sending a chill up our spines I am sure that not only I could hear the far off voices of the women crying softly asking us to remember them and to keep this site as a reminder of what they went through.

Some information has been sourced from:http://www.parragirls.org.au/female-factory.php
Renata Daniel – Newcastle Ghost Tours                                                             
 www.newcastleghosttours.com.au

CITY ARCADE

I recently went for a walk through the old City Arcade - a place that was quite magical for me when I was just a child.
It was a little corridor that weaved around from Hunter street and out to Newcomen Street in the Mall in Newcastle CBD.

I remember walking past on the way to our favorite and just about only coffee shop up that end of the street back in the 1980's with my mother - I was already a cappuccino freak in my early teens!
I remember the tobacconist who also sold a myriad of souvenirs and assorted wallets, and swiss army knives.

There were a few other shops that ran down the small arcade and it was always rather quiet and spooky. The Christian Reading Room has been there forever and there was also a florist for many years.
Everyone has their memories of the Arcade- it was one of those spots that made the Mall a special place. We no longer have Arcades in Newcastle although they are so very popular in Melbourne being a feature of the CBD. What have we lost? 

Paterson Cemetery

Last Friday, on the spur of the moment, I decided to take a drive to Paterson near Maitland.
The perfect warm winter's day made for a very pleasant journey and the valley is looking green and lush. Paterson is about an hour trip out of Newcastle and I wanted to visit the cemetery at St Paul's which sits close to the township's main corner.
A story in the local paper told of the need for a working bee to clean up and help save the deteriorating cemetery at the back.It was planned for the next day and I could not get there because of previous engagements.
When I arrived I firstly took a quick look inside the church and then headed out the back to walk through the site.
Gosh, were would you begin!
Not overly big but needing lots of work to clean this place  - I just hoped that there were some bodies who would turn up to lend a helping hand.
I am planning to head out again shortly to see what has been done.
It would be a shame for this last place of rest for our pioneer settlers to become just a memory.