Cascades Female Factory

History

Before the Cascades Female Factory was built, some rooms in Hobart’s Macquarie Street Gaol were used as a temporary female factory in the mid-1820s. The purpose-built facility opened in 1828 and operated as a convict institution until 1856. Its goals were to isolate women convicts from what authorities considered the bad influences and temptations of Hobart, and to shield the wider community from what was seen as the women’s immorality and corrupting effect.

The site was chosen on damp, swampy ground. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and insufficient food and clothing led to widespread disease and high death rates among the inmates. Today, it is the only female factory with surviving remains that give a clear impression of what these institutions were like. The site is listed on the Australian National Heritage List and, in July 2010, was inscribed on the World Heritage list alongside ten other Australian convict sites.

Nearly 35,000 people visited between 2018 and 2019. A design competition for a new History and Interpretation Centre was won in 2018 by a team combining Tasmanian practice Liminal Studio, international firm Snøhetta, and Melbourne landscape architects Rush Wright Associates. In 2020, the State Government pledged $3 million toward the $5 million centre, with the Federal Government providing the remaining $2 million. The site reopened in March 2022 with the new centre, and speeches were given by Honourable Madeleine Ogilvie MP and Honourable Dame Quentin Bryce.