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In this instance, public sentiment held more influence over the governor than did his apathetic wife. After nine years of scandals involving infant deaths, he finally approved the closing of Cascades Nursery in October 1838, motivated by economics rather than altruism. The nursery was relocated to the small Liverpool Street house in Hobart Town. Mindful of both finances and public relations, the Hobart Town coroner had “recommended that a new hospital and nursery be built close to, but outside, the Factory, in order to avoid the necessity of holding an inquest on every death therein. This would minimize administrative expense and avoid ‘excit[ing] . . . the Public Mind’ through inquests being held on ‘ordinary and unavoidable cases.’”24 According to an act of Parliament, inquests were required only for those who died inside a prison.

Nurse Tedder was about to enter the poorly ventilated little dwelling on Liverpool Street that now held Cascades’ tiniest prisoners. It was no place for the faint of heart. Walking down the valley toward the center of town, Arabella held tight to her mother’s new prison dress and followed Mrs. Cato’s directions to behave herself. This was where proper people lived, and children should be seen and not heard. Strolling by the replicas of English gardens, the ladies of Hobart Town wore black lace dresses embellished with pearl buttons, and white cambric collars and cuffs. Following fashion and imitating the coiffures of Parisians, they swept their hair off the face and styled it into soft curls.25

The town was built primarily on a straight grid, its long streets adorned by simple Georgian architecture. Behind the neatly trimmed Hawthorne hedges, private homes and government offices conveyed a gaol-like austerity, with squared bricks and severe edges. Lurking around the corner in the less tasteful side alleys, sly-grog shops enjoyed a booming business. Emancipists, as the freed convicts were known, congregated with sailors, bushrangers, madams, and corrupt government officers. For the most part, the town still tolerated an “anything goes” in a penal colony attitude. Unlicensed pubs abounded, serving homemade liquor, sometimes dangerously laced with laudanum—the same drug used to quiet infants in Britain’s slums.

Set amid bawdy houses, taverns, shops, and mansions, the Liverpool Nursery sat at the lower end of the street. Prisoners whose babies were not yet six months old were permitted to nurse their little ones. Some would later be assigned to colonists as wet nurses. Though not nearly as damp as Cascades, the new location was equally crowded, chaotic, and malodorous. A doctor passed through occasionally, but the prisoners themselves were assigned responsibility for fragile babies and scrawny toddlers ranging in age from six months to two years.

Ludlow’s hands-on medical training aboard the Hindostan, alongside an excellent recommendation from the surgeon superintendent, immediately moved her into the nursery’s top spot. Once again, a basic education and literacy led Ludlow to the best assignment among undesirable alternatives. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, could insulate Ludlow from the harsh and unanticipated reality she was about to face. Back at Cascades for supper, Mrs. Hutchinson asked Widow Tedder to step into her reception room for a private conversation. The matron told Ludlow that there was no place at the Female Factory for Arabella. Her ten-year-old daughter would be transferred to the Queen’s Orphanage in Hobart Town within a week.

Typically, mothers were given no warning about their children’s removal. 26 But in this case, Mrs. Hutchinson needed a well-trained nurse on her side, and she could ill afford to alienate her. If Ludlow maintained her exemplary behavior, she’d be allowed to make the four-mile walk and visit Arabella once a month, on Sunday. Ludlow listened silently while her heart sank at the prospect of losing another child. Behind her hazel eyes, nearly covered by her mob cap, her mind raced madly ahead, plotting schemes for an escape.

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