The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women (41 page)

Any person, connected with the establishment who shall disobey the orders contained in this regulation, if free shall be immediately dismissed, and if a convict shall be severely punished under the sentence of the principal superintendent.

10. No fires are to be allowed but such as are sanctioned by the principal superintendent, and be is to define the supply of fuel for the superintendent, free overseer, porter, constables and others, according to the general regulations of the government.

11. No poultry, pigeons, or pigs shall be kept within the walls of the establishment, nor is smoking on any account to be allowed.

12. It is to be distinctly explained by the principal superintendent to all the free officers employed within the establishment, and by the superintendent to all the female convicts on their admission that the utmost cleanliness, the greatest quietness, perfect regularity, and entire submission are laid down as fundamental laws of the establishment; and according to the degree of offending against any of them, punishment of some kind is invariably to follow. If these be observed, patient industry will appear, and reformation of character must be the result.

13. The Rev. Mr. Norman will superintend the religious instruction of the establishment occasionally during the week, and will perform divine service at least once every Sunday, and the resident superintendent will at all times give facility to any arrangement proposed by the chaplain for the more convenient assembly of the women, provided such arrangements do not militate against the established regulations of the House of Correction.

14. A general inspection of the establishment shall be made on the first Tuesday in every month by a committee, which shall be appointed by the Lieut. Governor, when a general return of the receipts and expenditure shall be furnished, together with a report exhibiting the number of females received and discharged during the preceding month, and a particular statement of their conduct, and the quantity of work performed. The observations of the committee, or of any authorized visitor will be entered in a book kept open for that purpose.—(D).

By His Excellency’s command, J. BURNETT.
Colonial Secretary’s Office, Jan. 1, 1829.

APPENDIX 6

COLONIAL TIMES
Friday 4 March 1831, page 4

Rules and Regulations for Young Ladies

At fifteen.—Affect vivacity, and line your bonnets with pink. If in company with an agreeable gentleman, hold your breath long enough to blush when he speaks to you, and incline your eyes downwards when giving an answer.

At sixteen.—Seem to have a high spirit, but show the most unbounded submission to the opinion of the favoured [
sic
] one. You may now (when in conversation) look in a gentleman’s face, but be cautious that the eyebrows are kept well arched. Affect a great liking for little babies, and get the credit of being an excellent nurse.

At seventeen.—Read the news of literature and fashion, and form your opinion of the follies of the day, upon their mode. Condemn a taste for public amusements, and talk of the happiness of retirement, and of domestic life. Simper “nimming pimming,” to put your lips in pretty shape, and kiss children before gentlemen, that they may look and envy. Wear frocks as low as the fashion will allow, but still leave much to conjecture.

At eighteen.—Look out seriously for a husband, and be everywhere upon your best behaviour [
sic
], taking great care not to smell of bread and butter.

At nineteen.—Go to routs and parties, but avoid general flirting. Dress fashionably, but with great neatness and propriety. Wear no flowers in your hair, but let the curls have an appearance of simple negligence.

At twenty.—Consider yourself in some danger of remaining single, and suit your conduct to your circumstances.

At twenty-one.—Be less particular than heretofore, for time begins to wane.

At twenty-two.—Think seriously of paying a visit to some friend at Madras or Calcutta.

At twenty-three.—Marry any body that is not downright intolerable.

At twenty-four.—You cease to be a young lady, and must manage as well as you can.

APPENDIX 7

COLONIAL TIMES
Tuesday 10 March 1840, page 4

Female Factory—The Flash Mob!

On more than one occasion, as our readers may recollect, have we directed the attention of the proper authorities, to the laxity of discipline, which is practised at the Female House of Correction, near this town. Did nothing further result from this heedlessness, than a winking at certain harmless pastimes, indulged in by the inmates, we should not again bring forward the subject, thus prominently; but information has reached us of so flagrant and revolting a character, that we cannot, under any consideration, remain silent.

We have appended to the title of this article, the term “Flash Mob”; that this term is technical, is sufficiently obvious; but few of our readers,—few, indeed, of any who possess the ordinary attributes of human nature, can even conjecture the frightful abominations, which are practised by the women, who compose this mob. Of course, we cannot pollute our columns with the disgusting details, which have been conveyed to us; but we may, with propriety, call the notice of the proper Functionaries to a system of vice, immorality, and iniquity, which has tended, mainly, to render the majority of female assigned servants, the annoying and untractable animals, that they are.

The Flash Mob at the Factory consists, as it would seem, of a certain number of women, who, by a simple process of initiation, are admitted into a series of unhallowed mysteries, similar, in many respects, to those which are described by Goethe, in his unrivalled Drama of Faust, as occurring, on particular occasions, amongst the supposed supernatural inhabitants of the Hartz Mountains. Like those abominable Saturnalia, they are performed in the dark and silent hour of night, but, unlike those, they are performed in solitude and secrecy, amongst only the duly initiated. With the fiendish fondness for sin, every effort, both in the Factory, and out of it, is made by these wretches, to acquire proselytes to their infamous practices; and, it has come to our knowledge, within these few days, that a simple minded girl, who had been in one and the same service, since she left the ship,—a period of nearly six months,—very narrowly escaped seduction (we can use no stronger term) by a well known, and most accomplished member of this unholy sisterhood.

This practice constitutes one of the rules of the “order;” and we need not waste many words to show how perniciously it must act upon the “new hands,” exposed to its influence. Another rule is, that, should any member be assigned, she must return to the Factory, so soon as she has obtained (we need not say by what means) a sufficient sum of money to enable herself and her companion to procure such indulgences, as the Factory can supply,—or, rather, as can be supplied by certain individuals, connected with the Factory. This sufficiently accounts for the contempt, which the majority of female prisoners entertain for the Factory, while it shows, also, why the solitary cell is considered the worst punishment.

Presuming that neither the Superintendent of the Female House of Correction, nor the Matron, can be cognizant of these things, we have thus publicly directed their attention to them; while we cannot but remark, that, their want of knowledge can only originate in direct and palpable negligence. In more than one sense, is this place deserving of the title of the “Valley of the Shadow of Death;” and in reflecting upon, what we can vouch to be true we do not, know, whether horror of indignation prevails most in our mind. Good God! When we consider that these wretches in human form, are scattered through the Colony, and admitted into the houses of respectable families, coming into hourly association with their sons, and daughters, we shudder, at the consequences, and cannot forbear asking the question: “Are there no means of preventing all this?” Is the Superintendent of the Female House of Correction (!) afraid of these harpies? Or is he too indolent or too good-natured to trouble himself about the matter? We cannot think that either is the case; for we believe Mr. Hutchinson to be a righteous man, and not likely to tolerate such rank abomination. If he be ignorant of the practices to which we have referred, we will willingly afford him all the information, that we possess. In concluding this painful subject, we may observe, that a favorite resort of this Flash Mob, when any of its members are out of the Factory, is the Canteen of a Sunday afternoon, and the Military Barracks of a Sunday night, where comfortable quarters may be procured until the morning! The whole system of Female Prison Discipline is bad and rotten at the very core, tending only to vice, immorality, and the most disgusting licentiousness.

NOTES

Introduction

1
Thomas Johnston,
The History of the Working Classes of Scotland
(Yorkshire, UK: EP Publishing, 1974), 319.

2
Susanna Corder,
Life of Elizabeth Fry: Compiled from Her Journal, as Edited by Her Daughters, and from Various Other Sources
(Philadelphia: Henry Longstreth, 1853), 251, 312; Abraham Harvey, 2nd Officer, “Reminiscences of the Voyage of the
Garland Grove 2
,” Archives of Tasmania, NS816; Frances J. Woodward,
Portrait of Jane: A Life of Lady Franklin
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1951), 143.

Chapter 1: The Grey-Eyed Girl

1
Scottish Record Office. High Court of Justiciary Processes, Reference JC26.

2
T.M. Devine,
The Scottish Nation
(New York: Viking Press, 1999), 334.

3
Christopher Hibbert,
Queen Victoria: A Personal History
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2000), 12.

4
Janet R. Glover,
The Story of Scotland
(New York: Roy Publishers, 1960), 320.

5
Heather Shore,
Artful Dodgers: Youth and Crime in Early 19th-Century London
(Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1999), 49.

6
E. P. Thompson,
The Making of the English Working Class
(New York: Vintage Books, 1966), 267.

7
Thomas Johnston,
The History of the Working Classes of Scotland
(Yorkshire, UK: EP Publishing, 1974), 295.

8
L. A. Selby-Bigge, ed.,
British Moralists: Being Selections from Writers Principally of the Eighteenth Century
, Volume I (New York: Dover Publications, 1965), 394.

9
T. R. Malthus,
An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, A View of its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness with an Inquiry into our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions
(London: Ward, Lock and Co., 1890), 579.

10
Glover,
The Story of Scotland
, 257.

11
Johnston,
The History of the Working Classes of Scotland
, 294.

12
W. Hamish Fraser and Irene Maver, eds.,
Glasgow Volume II: 1830 to 1912
(Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1996), 361.

13
Ibid., 362.

14
Johnston,
The History of the Working Classes of Scotland
, 319.

15
R. A. Cage, ed.,
The Working Class in Glasgow, 1750-1914
(London: Croom Helm, 1987), 42.

16
Johnston,
The History of the Working Classes of Scotland
, 203.

17
Ibid., 273.

18
Ibid., 318.

19
Douglas A. Galbi, “Through Eyes in the Storm: Aspects of the Personal History of Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution,” prepublication draft,
Social History
, Vol. 21, No. 2 (May 1996), 142-159;
http://www.galbithink.org/eyes.pdf
, 17.

20
Johnston,
The History of the Working Classes of Scotland
, 319.

21
Ibid.

22
“Child Labour, Factory Workers: Robert Blincoe,”
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRblincoe.htm
.

23
Excerpt from
A Memoir of Robert Blincoe
(1828) by John Brown,
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRblincoe.htm
.

24
Ibid.

25
Johnston,
The History of the Working Classes of Scotland
, 322.

26
Samuel Fielden, excerpt from
Autobiography of Samuel Fielden
(1887),
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRpunishments.htm
.

27
“Child Labour, Sarah Carpenter,” http:/ /
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRpunishments.htm
.

28
“Child Labour, Samuel Davy,” http:/ /
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRpunishments.htm
.