The Female Factory Research Group was formed in February 2004.  It is an initiative of the Co-Convenors Professor Lucy Frost and Dr Alison Alexander who are members of the Board of the Female Factory Historic Site Ltd.  The Group is a collaborative partner of the interdisciplinary Centre for Colonialism and its Aftermath at the University of Tasmania, of which Professor Lucy Frost and Professor Cassandra Pybus are Co-Directors. The Group’s purpose is to foster research into the lives and experiences of convict women and their children in Van Diemen’s Land, and into the Female Factories designed to define and contain those experiences.

Co-Convenors Lucy Frost and Alison Alexander

Membership is open to anyone interested in this research, and members at present include family historians; descendants of convict women and others associated with the Female Factories across the state (there were female factories in George Town, Launceston, and Ross, as well as Hobart); university undergraduates and postgraduates; academics; professional historians; cultural heritage practitioners; heritage tourism professionals; and staff from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Heritage Tasmania, Archives Office of Tasmania, and other Government departments.

We welcome anyone with an interest in the experience of female convicts.  If you would like to come to our meetings or be included on our email list, please contact Lucy Frost.

The group is a collaborative partner of the Centre for Colonialism and Its Aftermath based at the University of Tasmania.