BA (Hons I), Dip. Ed., PhD (USYD)
Founder and Director of the Female Factory Online
Founder, Director, Editor, Transcriber & Database Developer
DR. MICHAELA ANN CAMERON is an historian of colonial Australia and colonial America with specific research interests in ethnohistory, social history, sensory history (aural history / sound studies), digital history, public history, eighteenth-century Parramatta, nineteenth-century Parramatta, convicts, seventeenth-century New France, First Peoples, settler colonialism, Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples, and neurodecolonisation.

Dr. Cameron completed her PhD thesis, Stealing the Turtle’s Voice: A Dual History of Western and Algonquian-Iroquoian Soundways from Creation to Re-creation, at the University of Sydney in 2018. An ethnohistorian specialising in sensory history (sound and audition), her doctoral thesis explores how and why deeply ingrained acoustemological differences created cultural conflict between natives and newcomers both in and beyond the colonial period in the New World. Recently, she contributed a chapter, “Singing with Strangers in Early Seventeenth-Century New France,” to the edited collection, Daniela Hacke and Paul Musselwhite (eds.), Empire of the Senses: Sensory Practices of Colonialism in Early America, (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2017), pp. 88–112. Read more about her American History research here.
Michaela’s additional research interests in colonial Parramatta and particularly the convict experience have stemmed from the fact that her family has lived in Parramatta continuously since 1801. Known as “The Old Parramattan” for the purposes of her work as a public historian, Michaela has worked on a number of projects with the aim of promoting the history and heritage in her local area and raising awareness of its endangered heritage sites.
Most recently, Dr. Cameron was awarded a $66,290 Create NSW Arts and Cultural Grant for a collection of “Old Parramattans” to be published on her digital, public history website St. John’s Online (aka St. John’s Cemetery Project). Other activities over the years include;
- Developing the CONVICT PARRAMATTA walking tour for the Dictionary of Sydney Walks app (2015)
- Writing 11 entries on Parramatta’s heritage for the Dictionary of Sydney
- Promoting Parramatta’s lesser-known and well-known heritage items via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and blogging on “The Old Parramattan.”
- Founding and directing the Female Factory Online as well as managing related social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter).
- Founding and directing St. John’s Online as well as managing related social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter).
- Personally transcribing thousands of pieces of evidence for the FFO and St. John’s Online over the past six years.
- Personally identifying and profiling thousands of individuals for the FFO and St. John’s Online.
- Writing 38 entries for St. John’s Online.
Publications
- The entire St. John’s Online database
- The entire St. John’s ‘Female Factory’ dataset
- George Barrington: The Prince of Pickpockets (2021)
- Rogues, Rapists, Cheats, Thieves and Murderers: The Batmans (2021)
- Mary Cavillon: Homemaker, Housebreaker (2021)
- Nicholas Cavillon: ‘A Hardened Villain’ (2021)
- Grievable Lives (2021)
- The Grimshaws: The Eternal Masquerader (2021)
- The Hollands: Guns ‘n’ Tuberoses (2021)
- Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Lees: Departed Innocence (2021)
- Life and Death at the Parramatta Female Factory: The St. John’s Dataset (2022)
- Lost Landmark: St. John’s Parsonage, Parramatta (2020)
- The Killing and Keening of Simon Burn (2020)
- My Lord Dunn: A Tragicomedy (2016, 2020)
- Prudence Kerr: Dear Prudence (2020)
- John Lewis: The ‘First’ Murder (2020)
- Mary Martin: Ungodly Visitation (2020)
- No Pity for the Hunted (2020)
- Mary Smyth and John Kenny: A Murderer’s Banes in Gibbet Airns (2020)
- The Taylors: I Am But Sleeping Here (2020)
- Name-Calling: A Dual-Naming Policy (2018, 2020)
- Sarah Moses: Tell the World I Died for Love (2019)
- Benjamin Ratty: Convict Constable (2019)
- The Wretched, Rascally and Depraved Magees, and the Story of St. John’s First Burial (2019)
- Houison’s He-Creature (2019)
- Elizabeth Eccles: The Dairy Maid (2018)
- Deborah Herbert: A Prigger of Toggery (2018)
- Hannah Steele: The Gaoler’s Daughter (2018)
- Adelaide de la Thoreza: A Factory Señorita? (2018)
- “Singing with Strangers in Early Seventeenth-Century New France,” in Daniela Hacke & Paul Musselwhite (eds.), Empire of the Senses: Sensory Practices of Colonialism in Early America, (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 88–112. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004340640_005
- Frances Hannah Clements: The Convict’s Child (2016)
- Thomas Eccles: The Swine Connoisseur (2016)
- David Killpack: The Merry Mutineer (2016)
- James Wright: The Highwayman (2016)
- Mary Kelly: The ‘First Lady’ of Kellyville (2016)
- A. M. Fernando: Return to the Old Bailey (2016)
- John Martin: The Self-Freed Slave (2016)
- Daniel Mow-watty: The Boy Who Strayed from the Bush Path (2016)
- Richard Partridge: The Left-Handed Flogger (2016)
- James McManus: The Wrath of a Madman (2016)
- Jane McManus: The Maid Freed From The Gallows (2016)
- Elizabeth Bennett: The Baker’s Wife (2015, 2017)
- William H. Bennett: An Eminent Baker (2015)
- Lydia Barber: A Real Tess of the d’Urbervilles (2015)
Qualifications
- PhD (History), University of Sydney
- Dip Ed (Secondary: English), University of New South Wales
- BA (Hons I), Majors: History and English, University of Sydney
Contributions
Essays
- Elizabeth Bennett: The Baker’s Wife
- Factory Above the Gaol (c.1802–1821)
- Hannah Steele: The Gaoler’s Daughter
- Mary Cavillon: Homemaker, Housebreaker
- Nicholas Cavillon: ‘A Hardened Villain’
- Life and Death at the Parramatta Female Factory: The St. John’s Dataset (2022)
- Parramatta Female Factory (1821–c.1848)
Blog Posts
- Adelaide de la Thoreza: A Factory Señorita?
- Female Factory Nicknames
- Houison’s He-Creature
- Romani of the Female Factory and St. John’s
- The Earliest Female Factory Police Report