The Parramatta Female Factory Research Centre
The Parramatta Female Factory Friends Research Centre is used by the Research Team who conduct research on a number of areas of Australian History and in particular the Female Convicts that were in the Parramatta Female Factory.
The Parramatta Female Factory Friends Research Centre is made up of the following areas:
Education
We are working on a number of topics to assist the public – young and old to understand what happened at the Parramatta Female Factory
- A complete list of Convict Ships transporting Female Convicts
- A Master List of Female Convicts
- Assignments
- Board of Management
- Class System
- Crime & Punishment
- Convict Life
- Crimes and Punishment within the Factory
- Evolution of the Factory System
- Life after Prison
- Marriage Bureau
- Superintendents and Matrons
- Transportation
- Unbelievable tragedy and triumph – a few Female Convicts
- Other Female Factories in Australia
Our Fast Facts?
A quick read on the history of the Parramatta Female Factory.
Our Research Collection
- Babette Smith Library Collection
- PFFF Library Collection, Books, Magazines, Microfilms, Microfiche
- Our Exhibition – Antiquities and Artefacts, as well as display boards and cabinets of rare and unique items
- Our Research Links – to help you with your Female Convict research
- Snippets – a collection of stories that make up the fabric of the Parramatta Female Factory
The centre is the only resource that provides specifically face to face, digital and online history information for the Parramatta Female Factory women, life in the factory and site history.
Our Parramatta Female Factory Resouce Centre is open to the public on the third Friday of the month for your own research or by appointment if you would like to talk to one of our research team for advice with your female factory family history quest or other related history research.
The Research Centre is an evolving history service and includes books, magazines, periodicals, digital resources, reference materials, archived newspapers, records, microfiche and microfilm, which is particularly focused on Genealogy and specifically Female Convicts.
- Parramatta Female Factory Female Convicts
- Parramatta Female Factory Site History
- Colonial Social History
- Hulks
- Convict Transportation
- Convicts
- Early colonial history
- Australian History – 1770 – Present
- Famous People – including pre and post colonialism
- Social Environment
- Geographical Place History
- Demographics including Industry and Society
- Biographical Data including Births, Deaths and Marriages
- Cemetery Records
- British History -England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales
Research Inquiries
If you believe or have already found a female convict ancestor, you should consider emailing parramattafemalefactoryfriends@gmail.com and complete the following ‘Female Convict Permission Form.
Members – Free for the first hour – and receive an hour each year on renewal of membership (free of charge).
Non Members and Members (in excess of 1 hour) = $25/hr.
A maximum of 4 hours ($100) will be spent on a female convict research request and any additional time required after that is subject to negotiation.
During research, any expenses for copying documents from other organisations e.g. State Archives, will be notified and paid for prior to copying the document. Some documents may or may not contain additional information.
The completed research will be a document/pdf containing a Biographical Data form, a narrative (Biography), any copies of images which are allowed to be used (some images may be subject to copyright). The document will have a list of all references accessed.
If you wish to submit a research request, the first step is to complete the Permission Form – Convict Information and then email the completed form to parramattafemalefactoryfriends@gmail.com where the Research Coordinator will allocate the Research to one of the team members who will be in contact with you.
A paid member of the Parramatta Female Factory Friends can use the Research Centre to conduct your own research.
Members of the public are able to browse the books in the Library.
All books are Reserved and are not able to be borrowed from the Library.
Unlike other libraries, the Parramatta Female Factory Friends has a special collection of rare colonial books, magazines, microfiche, cd-roms, databases and excel files that assist us in helping members finding whether their ancestors were in the Parramatta Female Factory and what happened to them.
Selected research inquiries, with permission, are edited and developed into stories suitable for a variety of formats and are often included in the bi-monthly newsletter distributed to members of the Parramatta Female Factory Friends or may be selected as part of the HerStory publications with appropriate acknowledgement.
Grants
In 2022 and 2023, through Federal Grants the Parramatta Female Factory Friends has been able to fitout the entire Research Centre with the latest equipment and items necessary to function as a public research library.
The Grant covered the expenses of additional computers for online research, library shelves, printers, office equipment, filing cabinets and storage facilities to house collections, rare books and invaluable research papers.