Abandoned Women: Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas

Frost, Lucy
Abandoned Women: Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas

Abandoned Women: Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas

Frost, Lucy

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'Her superb research and sympathetic reconstructions of nineteenth-century Scotland and Australia bring to life a long-forgotten but fascinating group of women.' - Sian Rees, author of The Floating Brothel.

In the early nineteenth century, crofters and villagers streamed into the burgeoning cities of Scotland, and families splintered. Orphan girls, single mothers and women on their own all struggled to feed and clothe themselves. For some, petty theft became a part of life. Any woman deemed 'habite & repute a thief' might find herself before the High Court of Justiciary, tried for yet another minor theft and sentenced to transportation 'beyond Seas'...

Lucy Frost memorably paints the portrait of a boatload of women and their children who arrived in Hobart in 1838. Instead of serving time in prison, the women were sent to work as unpaid servants in the houses of settlers. Feisty Scottish convicts, unaccustomed to bowing and scraping, often irritated their middle-class employers, who charged them with insolence, or refusing to work, or getting drunk. A stint in the female factory became their punishment...

Many women survived the convict system and shaped their own lives once they were free.
They married, had children and found a place in the community. Others, though, continued to be plagued by errors and disasters until death.

Author:   Frost, Lucy
Publisher:   Allen & Unwin
ISBN:  

9781760290269


Pages:   240
Publication Date:   24 June 2015
Bind Format:   Paperback
Availability:  
This item is in stock and will be dispatched immediately.

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'Her superb research and sympathetic reconstructions of nineteenth-century Scotland and Australia bring to life a long-forgotten but fascinating group of women.' - Sian Rees, author of The Floating Brothel.

In the early nineteenth century, crofters and villagers streamed into the burgeoning cities of Scotland, and families splintered. Orphan girls, single mothers and women on their own all struggled to feed and clothe themselves. For some, petty theft became a part of life. Any woman deemed 'habite & repute a thief' might find herself before the High Court of Justiciary, tried for yet another minor theft and sentenced to transportation 'beyond Seas'...

Lucy Frost memorably paints the portrait of a boatload of women and their children who arrived in Hobart in 1838. Instead of serving time in prison, the women were sent to work as unpaid servants in the houses of settlers. Feisty Scottish convicts, unaccustomed to bowing and scraping, often irritated their middle-class employers, who charged them with insolence, or refusing to work, or getting drunk. A stint in the female factory became their punishment...

Many women survived the convict system and shaped their own lives once they were free.
They married, had children and found a place in the community. Others, though, continued to be plagued by errors and disasters until death.

Product Details
Author:   Frost, Lucy
Publisher:   Allen & Unwin
ISBN:  

9781760290269


Pages:   240
Publication Date:   24 June 2015
Bind Format:   Paperback
Availability:  
This item is in stock and will be dispatched immediately.
Reviews

Reviews

Recent Reviews

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