Evidence Type: Newspaper Report
9 February 1847
LOCAL INTELLIGENCE
FEMALE FACTORY
We have much pleasure in giving publicity to the accompanying letter from the Colonial Secretary to Mr. GEORGE SMYTH, of the Female Factory, which we feel satisfied will—with our contradiction in our paper of Thursday last—entirely erase any unfavourable impressions which may have been made on the public mind, as to the “allegations” referred to in our paper of the 2nd Instant.
(COPY)
Colonial Secretary’s Office,
Sydney, Feb. 3, 1847.
SIR,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this day’s date, drawing attention to a paragraph in the Australian newspaper of yesterday, imputing to you and the matron [LUCY SMYTH] a charge of defalcation in the stores of the Female Factory, and requesting a contradiction of such an imputation.
In reply, I have the honour to inform you that the dismissal of Mrs. SMYTH and yourself from your present situations of matron and storekeeper in the Female Factory, did not proceed from any imputation against either of you, in any way affecting your characters for honesty, but from your having permitted great irregularities to take place in the establishment, wholly at variance with the system of discipline necessary to be observed in one of the nature in question.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
E. DEAS THOMSON.
Mr. GEORGE SMYTH, Storekeeper of the Female Factory, Parramatta.
See Original: “LOCAL INTELLIGENCE. FEMALE FACTORY,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Tuesday 9 February 1847, p.3
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