Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory Site

Coordinates: 27°25′49″S 153°04′57″E / 27.4303°S 153.0825°E / -27.4303; 153.0825

Footpath at the site, 2015

The Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory (also known as the Eagle Farm Agricultural Establishment) operated between 1829 and 1839 on the site now part of the Australia TradeCoast, previously the Brisbane Airport in the Brisbane suburb of Eagle Farm. Women worked in the fields and in the prison, doing needlework, laundry, unpicking ropes and even in road construction. Several timber slab buildings included the farm superintendent's house, a two-room building for male prisoners who did heavy work, the Matron's Quarters, a female factory with four rooms and sundry separate buildings including a one-room store, a one-room school and a one room hospital. The cook house had two rooms, one being a needle room where prisoners worked at sewing. The actual prison where women were locked up at night was a building containing six cells with a tall stockade or pallisade type fence, the outer wall 5.2m high poles, the tops of which were sharpened.[1] When the penal colony was closed in 1839 the site was returned to farming. The superintendent's house was thought to have survived until at least 1890.[2][3][4]

Land for an aerodrome was acquired by the Commonwealth in 1922 and hangars built in 1925 and 1927. The site ceased operation as an aerodrome in 1931 but was refurbished for aviation in 1942 as an airbase for the US Pacific Military Command. The remnants of Allison engine testing beds survive from this period. After the war in 1949 Eagle Farm became Brisbane's main airport. In 1988 the airport closed again, aviation moving to the present Cribb Island site. The women's prison site then became an open grassed area.[1]

The site is listed on the Register of the National Estate and is also included on the Queensland Heritage Register. The site is historically important as one of a small number of convict sites remaining in Queensland with surviving original fabric (even though only as an archaeological deposit).[2]

Early History

Female convicts sent to the Moreton Bay penal settlement (who, like the men, were double offenders) were originally housed in a women's gaol, or Female Factory, in Queen Street, Brisbane, on the site of the present GPO.[4]

In September 1829 the Moreton Bay penal settlement's Commandant Patrick Logan established farming at Eagle Farm. One hundred and fifty men cleared the scrub. By January 1836, 768 acres (307.2 hectares) had been cleared but perhaps only 46 acres (16.4 hectares) of this area were used to grow maize (corn), potatoes, other vegetables and fruit and to rear cattle and pigs.[3] However the historical report by Paul Ashron and Sue Rosen suggests the area under cultivation was closer to 700 acres. [5] Prangley in "The Eagle Farm agricultural establishment" was unable to be definitive on this issue, saying the amount of actual area under cultivation "remains unclear". [1]

There are conflicting reports about when the first female convicts started working at the farm and factory. The Queensland Heritage Register says by 1830, the Australian Heritage Database says by 1834. Prangley notes there is mention of three dairywomen in the work list for 1828, but these may have been associated with the principal colony farm at New Farm. All sources agree by 1836 there were 40 women, when conditions of the farm and factory were documented by the Quaker missionaries James Backhouse and George Walker.[1][2][3]

By August 1836 there were 78 women at the original female factory at the site now occupied by the General Post Office, Brisbane.The impetus to move the women to Eagle Farm was their proximity to the main male population, which led to sexual forays between the women and soldiers and officials of the colony, despite the high stone walls of the factory being topped with broken glass. These forbidden fraternisations intensely annoyed the penal colony's Commandant, Captain Foster Fyans.[1] Women caught were put in solitary confinement in tiny cells, put in irons or had their heads shaved. Patrick McDonald was replaced as supervisor for having aided and abetted access by amorous constables. In August 1836 Fyans caught the colony's Chief Constable climbing over the walls by means of an "ingenious ladder", which prompted him to reduce the numbers of women in Brisbane Town to 14 of the oldest. By 1837 they were all at Eagle Farm. However the move did not stop the fraternisations, which continued to occur in the long grass around the farm.[1][3]

During 1837 the numbers of convicts, both men and women, started declining rapidly as the penal settlement began to wind up. In May 1839 the remaining 57 convict women were shipped to Sydney and the penal settlement was effectively closed. In 1841 the superintendent's quarters were occupied by assistant surveyor Robert Dixon and then briefly by Stephen Simpson, Commissioner for Crown Lands. At this time the land was used as a Government cattle station. From the 1840s to the 1930s the land was used for mixed farming including citrus fruit, dairying, cattle grazing, and small crops.[1]

Aborigines

In the first years of the penal settlement there was a substantial population of local Aborigines in the area, their numbers depending on the season. In April 1836 Dr Robertson, the penal surgeon, wrote of the long road between Brisbane and Eagle Farm passing through "the fishing ground of a tribe of aboriginal natives; at seasons of the year they are very dangerous and troublesome."[6]

This was at odds with the observations of Commandant Cotton the following year who wrote "the tribes which occupy the lands immediately adjacent to Brisbane Town, after an acquaintance of several years, come amongst us in confidence, a good understanding prevails between them and us… These tribes were formerly extremely hostile…"[6]

Aborigines were known to raid produce and dwellings in the vicinity of Brisbane including small farms from Breakfast Creek to Eagle Farm, mostly in the period 1845-54 after the penal settlement was closed down and the area was opened to white settlers. In 1850, 31 Aborigines armed with spears and waddies descended on Breakfast Creek and dug up the potatoes of Martin Frawley, the former convict miller turned farmer.[6]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Prangley, Dean Queensland History Journal, Vol. 21, No. 12, February 2013, The Royal Queensland Historical Society of Queensland ISSN 1836-5477
  2. 1 2 3 Australian Heritage Database, Department of Environment, Australian Government
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory Site (entry 600186)". Queensland Heritage Register. Queensland Heritage Council. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  4. 1 2 History of Corrective Services in Queensland, Queensland Government.
  5. ↑ Ashton and Rosen in Higginbotham, Historical and archaeological assessment of the Eagle Farm agricultural establishment, female factory and prison, Eagle Farm, Brisbane, Queensland.
  6. 1 2 3 Brisbane: The Aboriginal Presence 1824-1860, Edited by Rod Fisher, Brisbane History Group Papers No. 11, 1992

External links

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