Report on Female Factory

Evidence Type: Newspaper Report
13 March 1843

FEMALE SERVANTS

His Excellency the Governor having approved of an arrangement proposed by the Visiting Justice of the Female Factory, for placing some of the best conducted women in private service, the same is to be carried into effect under the following Regulations:

  1. Applications for servants are to be made direct to the Visiting Justice of the Factory, and must be recommended by at least one Magistrate or Clergyman, who will take care that the applicant is of unexceptionable character.
  2. The master or mistress will be required to pay to the servant wages varying from £8 to £10 a year, to be fixed by the Visiting Justice according to her qualifications; and every application must contain an engagement to that effect.
  3. The servant, after being six months in service, will be allowed to change her situation, by giving one month’s notice, but the change will only be allowed under the sanction of the Police Magistrate or Bench of Magistrates of the district, who will take care that the prisoner does not engage with any one who is not of an unexceptionable character, and that the transfer is immediately reported to the Principal Superintendent of Convicts.
  4. If the woman should not, at the expiration of the month’s notice, have secured another approved situation, she is to be returned through the Bench of the district to the Female Factory, and a sum not exceeding ten shillings is to be deducted from her wages, and paid by her employer to defray the expense of her conveyance.
  5. In like manner the master or mistress, after six months, may give the servant notice of one month to enable her to provide another situation, and if unable to procure other employment, she is to be returned through the Bench of the district to the Female Factory; a charge not exceeding ten shillings, at the discretion of the Bench, being made on her employer to cover the expense of her conveyance to Parramatta.
  6. If any woman in service should misconduct herself, she is to be taken before the Bench of the district; and no servant returned to the Factory for punishment will be again placed in private service for at least twelve months; but no charge in such case will be made on the employer.
  7. Persons receiving servants under these Regulations, will be required to pay, before receiving them, the sum fixed in the Regulations of 25th November, 1840.

See Original: “FEMALE SERVANTS,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Monday 13 March 1843, p.3