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By Root 1721 0

unlatched the weighty entrance door. Unlike the boisterous clamor inside London’s Newgate Prison, the compound seemed eerily devoid of human voices. A rather imposing figure hurried toward the transports. White bonnet tied in a crisp bow under her wide chin, Matron Mary Hutchinson curtsied and greeted the British officers. A bundle of efficiency at twenty-six, she knew the factory system well, having grown up inside Sydney’s Parramatta Female Factory, run by her father. She was the no-nonsense woman in charge, heavy black dress buttoned tight to the neck. Shuffling behind was her husband, John, with his gaunt face, high cheekbones, and scraggly little whiskers hanging over his neck.

John Hutchinson, a Methodist minister, was seventeen years her senior. He was named superintendent in 1832, but Mary essentially ran Cascades, particularly when her husband’s health began to fail. Elizabeth Cato, who had arrived in 1831, assisted the Hutchinsons as deputy matron and midwife. Her husband, William, served as prison overseer.

The officer in charge of the soldiers observed the brief formality of handing over the women and children in his possession. Superintendent Hutchinson, an efficient bureaucrat, had already organized the conduct records and physical description for each prisoner. A porter opened a small, heavily reinforced door and led the weary transports into a paved yard. Agnes and Janet scanned the enclosure, filled with women busy at work but mum as mutes. They would soon learn the reason for silence. No one spoke, but their eyes told many stories. The two Glasgow lasses stared at the women in dingy uniforms coughing and running their tongues over sore gums and missing teeth. Surely they couldn’t have looked this bad upon arrival.

Gradually, Agnes moved to the front of the line for processing. Surgeon Superintendent Ellis had classified the grey-eyed lass as a troublemaker. She and Janet were listed as accomplices in crime, so Mr. Hutchinson considered it his duty to separate the pair immediately.

Clothes Don’t Make the Woman

Assistant Matron Cato brought one girl at a time into a small reception room, where Mrs. Hutchinson stood next to a tall stack of ugly dresses. Hairstyling was not allowed at the Female Factory, so Agnes was forced to hand over the comb Mrs. Fry had tucked inside her sturdy burlap bag. Mrs. Cato told Agnes she would put it in storage for safekeeping and gave her a nudge toward the washtub. Every prisoner was required to disrobe and bathe upon arrival.

Splashing the cold water over herself was a shock, though Agnes experienced some relief in removing salt and dirt accumulated from nearly four months aboard the Westmoreland. Most clothing worn at sea was beyond repair and thrown in a pile for burning. After checking Agnes’s head for lice, Mrs. Hutchinson issued the prison uniform, sewn from low-grade wool and chosen for its coarseness. It would be a constant reminder of the transgressions that brought the grey-eyed rebel to Van Diemen’s Land. Pulling the wool shift over her head, Agnes recalled many unpleasant memories of the days spent in Mr. Green’s Glasgow mill. The fabric was scratchy and the shift had no shape, but at least it was clean. New stockings were a pleasant surprise and, in spite of everything else, felt refreshing on her feet. Agnes received the remainder of the unfashionably dreary wardrobe for her seven-year sentence: a second shift for when she washed the first, two aprons, two caps, two handkerchiefs for her monthly flow, and a second pair of stockings.

Convict dress was meant to be a marker for the wearer, a warning that she was an untrustworthy outcast. The clothes Agnes and Janet wore were so unbecoming as to elicit derision from the highly decorated Colonel Mundy when he visited the Female Factory. After an initial observation that the prisoners appeared deaf and dumb performing their work in silence, he added: “there must be a good deal in dress as an element of beauty—for I scarcely saw a tolerably pretty woman.”23

Ugly attire in tow, Agnes held on to her familiar