Cascades Female Factory

Convict-era prison and workhouse where 5,000 female convicts were held — Australia's most affecting women's history site

Address 16 Degraves Street, South Hobart
Opening Hours Daily 09:30–16:00
Admission AU$15 self-guided; AU$25 with guided tour

A confronting, important site that most visitors miss. The Female Factory occupied a damp gully behind Mount Wellington from 1828 to 1856, deliberately positioned at the foot of the mountain where the cold and wet made daily life harder. Most of the original walls are gone — there is little left but the outline of the yards — but the audio guides and the visitor centre exhibition do an unusually honest job of telling the story.

Guided tours at 11:00 most days are essential — without one, the bare stone walls don't communicate much. The on-site "Her Story" live-actor performance (booking ahead, summer only) is among the best historical interpretation in Australia. The site is one of the eleven Australian Convict Sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

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A story
Between 1828 and 1856, about 13,000 women and children convicts were transported from Britain to Van Diemen's Land. The Cascades Female Factory housed them on arrival, separated babies from their mothers at six months, and put the women to work washing and sewing for the colony's free settlers. Mortality was high, and the site is now a UNESCO-listed reminder that the convict story was not only male. The "Footsteps Towards Freedom" sculpture on the city waterfront — three women and a 10-year-old boy — memorialises them.