Convict Maids: The Forced Migration of Women to Australia

by Deborah Oxley

Convict Maids looks at female convicts transported from Britain and Ireland to New South Wales between 1826 and 1840. Deborah Oxley refutes the notion that these women were prostitutes and criminals, arguing that in fact they helped put the colony on its feet. Analyzing their backgrounds, Oxley finds that they were skilled, literate, young and healthy--qualities exploited by the new colony. Convict Maids draws on historical, economic and feminist theory, and is impressive for its extensive and original research.

Genres: History, Australia, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published June 17, 1996

Reviews

[Julia Gilchrist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oxley has written a thoroughly researched academic work. Taking her raw data from convict indents on the first group of women forcibly emigrated to Australia through the British penal convict punishment system, Oxley pulls together connections, context and explanations to support her interpretation of how these women were selected for transportation. Through this selection process, she explores the choices made by commissioners for Australia's penal colony in redressing the gender imbalance (the initial convict fleets were male), so as to ensure the ongoing self-sufficiency of the colony as it transformed towards the seeds of a 'new nation' as the colonies expanded then eventually coalesced in unity (and some disunity) towards Federation then Australia. It is a tough read in the sense that the data is complex and overwhelming at times, because the records themselves, categories of employment which women held in the UK and convict women's roles were not aligned. Oxley explains this very well, enabling her readers to navigate the approximations she had to make with aligning categories of work, value of work, identifying whether convict women were the dregs of British society, or were women simply unlucky within the justice system (and more widely, in the society they had to survive). At the more personal level, Oxley touches on the impact of forced migration upon women who had to leave children, husbands, parents and siblings behind because of their being transported. However, she does not belabour or go into extensive detail on this facet, probably because her purpose in writing this text was to collate, compare and draw conclusions from the raw data of women coming to Australia as a means of providing a solid database from which future researchers could work on. She does an excellent job, particularly in identifying the high literacy and numeracy of convict women compared to their peers back in the UK (which I found very surprising) and I found I felt proud of these women - they were highly adaptable, skilled, ready to take on new opportunities and very resilient - changing countries, environments and navigating everything the penal colony was took a lot of guts and I think the women back home in the UK and women today can be very proud that these women were so capable amid such challenging circumstances. In a sense, through all the data, we see how strong women are generally, I found this inspiring.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, had to read for an essay at Uni but seriously love the subject. I also love that it's kept interesting by putting in tidbits of information about specific women. It makes it so much more real and so intriguing!