Convict Lives: Mothers’ Trials and Triumphs (Convict Women’s Press, 2025) is a compelling collection of 25 true stories about female convicts who served time in Van Diemen’s Land during the 1800s.
Edited by Alison Alexander and Ros Escott, the collection blends meticulous historical research with personal reflection – particularly in the accounts written by descendants of the women they portray. Each piece is well-crafted and accessible to both academic and general readers.
Stories about colonial Australia tend to focus on male convicts, leaving female convicts overlooked and underrepresented. This makes Mothers’ Trials and Triumphs essential reading for anyone interested in Australia’s colonial past and the lived experiences of convict women.
I’d recommend Convict Lives: Mothers’ Trials and Triumphs to history buffs and those interested in Australia’s convict period.
Life as a female convict in Van Diemen’s Land
Convict Lives: Mothers’ Trials and Triumphs sheds light on how tough life was for female convicts.
They were sentenced to transportation from Britain to Van Diemen’s Land for crimes – many relating to poverty – and experienced harsh, confined conditions aboard the ships that delivered them to the colony.
When they arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, the convict women were assigned to work as domestic servants or sent to ‘female factories’, such as the one at Cascades, where they were given tasks like sewing and laundry. Strict discipline was enforced at the female factories, which were often overcrowded and unsanitary, making them extremely unpleasant places.
Babies born to female convicts were allowed to stay with them only while they were still breastfeeding. After they stopped nursing, the children were usually taken away and sent to orphanages, workhouses, or special schools because it was hard for the authorities to look after children in prisons.
Having their children taken away from them would have been traumatic and devastating for the convict women, who were also plagued by heavy social stigma. Their opportunities were severely limited, as well. For many of them, the easiest way to some kind of stability was marrying a free settler or a Ticket-of-Leave convict. Some managed to earn their own Tickets-of-Leave through good behaviour, and a few – like Elizabeth Harris, whose story is told in Mothers’ Trials and Triumphs – were even reunited with their children and went on to lead fulfilling lives after finishing their sentences.
Callum J. Jones studied English, History and Journalism at the University of Tasmania and lived in western Sydney from 2022 to 2024 while working as a journalist for Professional Planner, a leading online publication for financial planners. He has written for Tasmanian Times since 2018 and has also been published in a range of other outlets, including Quadrant and the BAD Western Sydney anthologies.
