What the convict women brought with them—and what they left behind
Saturday 7 November 2015
Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, Marieville Esplanade, Sandy Bay
Convict women sometimes brought tangible things with them on the voyage, money, bags of clothes, children. Some brought intangible baggage as well—the skills of a trade, a proficiency in writing, the songs they learned as children and the songs they sang in pubs. Some carried tattoos on their bodies, and some carried injuries and disease. As they disembarked, they left behind the worlds they had known. For some this meant mothers and fathers, husbands and children. For some it meant the workhouse, or life on the streets.
Session 1:
Janet McCalman: “Invisible burdens: mental and physical health”.
Lois Newham: ‘Tattoos written on their bodies’
Lilian Macdonald: ‘The town they left behind: woman convicts from the “Fair City of Perth”, Scotland'
Session 2:
Chris Leppard: ‘“There are besides many little articles too numerous and insignificant to be noted here”: understanding convict women through their 'checked in' luggage’
Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, ‘Capital Offending: An Historical Audit of Convict Bank Accounts’
Trudy Cowley: ‘How did the pre-transportation trades of female convicts transfer to the colony of Van Diemen’s Land? (analysis of differences between trades named on embarkation lists with those on the appropriation lists)’
Session 3:
Don Bradmore: ‘Convict School Mistresses in Van Diemen’s Land’
Maureen Bransden: ‘Women Who Cared: convict nurses and midwives’
Tamsin O’Connor, ‘"Unpacking her Black Economic Bags": Smuggling, sly grog, sex and the price of gossip on the penal frontier. Female economic mobility and the penal station of Newcastle 1804-1822’
Jan Richardson: ‘Convict Women at Their Needle in Moreton Bay’
